


inktober 2017

by charcoalsuns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-08 15:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 22,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12257505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: a challenge for myself to write a something standalone from a different POV every day.mostly canon compliant, with some future fic and some magical realism.respective characters, prompts, and word counts are listed in eachchapter title.





	1. swift // hinata, from one summit to another // 180 words

**Author's Note:**

> (10.03)  
> i'll publish all of these at once when the month is over, but the dates will reflect the days i wrote each one. 
> 
> i'm doing them with pen and paper, in an attempt to channel some ~ink~tober spirit (in addition to that of creating every day, of course), but i wanted to type them up afterward to see how they turn out on screen. i don't even know how many words these amount to, here's hoping i'll be surprised at the end o.o
> 
> guidelines i'm going by are..  
> \- try out voices that intimidate me, and scenes that i've been putting off  
> \- don't use the prompt word itself  
> \- write each piece in one go, no restarting, and only cross things out if they're misspellings or lead to odd grammar (and when putting into ao3, no edits! except for paragraph breaks - because i can see how differently i perceive a block of text when it's handwritten vs. typed, eek)  
> \- don't think about how long or short it will be, just write one self-contained thing every day  
> \- if it isn't working, finish it, and tomorrow's will be different! 
> 
> prompts are from [this list by @inktober](https://twitter.com/inktober/status/911044711774687232)
> 
> all right!!!
> 
>  
> 
> (10.31) (technically early 11.01)  
> i think i have a lot i'm thinking about right now but most of all i just  
> *-*  
> i did it
> 
> one thing, though: i did end up doing some editing of word choice/sentence rhythm/etc when i typed these in, and i definitely have a lot of crossouts to that effect happening on these papers - even so, by eliminating how much i played around with the sentences and themes themselves, i learned a bunch about how to go along with what i've started and /finish it/
> 
> there were two days where i didn't manage to complete what i'd begun writing, but i have written something every day for thirty-one (technically thirty...four? i was working on something else at the end of september) (that seems so long ago now what on earth) days in a row, and that's. more than i can say i ever have before
> 
> whew ;;;

 

There is nothing quite like the view from the crest of a hill, Hinata thinks, in the millisecond's span he can see it, before gravity tugs at his front wheel and he goes hurtling down the other side.

There's the cold rush against his cheeks, his fingertips, his scalp – there's the momentum that builds like a scream in his lungs. It's the second-best view from the top; second because this one, he can see on his own. The feeling of being alone bubbles up through his throat, bright as the sun just peeking over the mountains, and he sends his laughter sailing ahead, where it's immediately whipped back behind him, where it's lost to the wind of his advance.

He sticks out his legs on a stretch of empty road, ankles chilled where the ends of his pants fly upward. Practice waits for him at the base of this hill, and there, he'll climb his way high again, toward another opening that would disappear in a blink, if he could ever even consider closing his eyes at the sight.

 


	2. divided // kindaichi, of two minds at once // kitaichi, 331 words

 

"Let's go, already," Kunimi doesn't say, but the steady bend of his shoulders as he walks away carries his impatience for him.

Kindaichi, unable to stop himself from looking back through the gym doors, wishes he could drop it as easily. That Kageyama's the last one there, again, and no matter how many times Kunimi mutters to him that such relentlessness is unnecessary, Kindaichi keeps feeling the opposite seep into his mind – he wishes he didn't wish _he_ could throw himself into practice like that; he wishes he'd stop looking back at Kageyama on his way home and feeling like he was the one being left behind, instead.

 

"You're doing plenty, already," Kunimi doesn't say, but his silent glare upward when Kindaichi finally falls into step beside him makes their solidarity audible, anyway.

Night is still falling early enough that the streetlights are on as they walk to the station, their clouded breaths visible in the glow. Kindaichi's limbs aren't cooled completely, though, and despite the way his fingers clench into fists in his pockets, despite the frustration that lashes its way back toward someone, two someones, maybe, who couldn't care less, he knows he still has it within himself to move a little more.

Just a jog down the street. Just a set of stairs taken two at a time up to the platform. It's just - Kindaichi knows there won't be anyone to meet him there, and he knows he doesn't want to go at it alone. He's seen what it looks like, after all.

 

"Let's get something to eat," Kunimi doesn't say.

Kindaichi pauses in the middle of the sidewalk at his unexpected turn, down another street a few too early for the station; lets the understanding wash over him and make an almost-smile out of the tightness in his jaw. He pulls his thoughts back, as best as he can, from the directions it would do no one any good to pursue. Probably.

They get something to eat.

 


	3. poison // oikawa, glimpses from a purge // 574 words

 

★ Use only as directed. 

The coaches have left him in the hands of faculty members who haven't left yet, have left the keys in an outside pocket of his bag. His water bottle's long since emptied, but he can't waste time going down to the bathrooms to refill it. There is only the line before him, only the weight of the ball that drags his palm downward, only the gasp of breath, the calculated footwork, the precise angle and strength of the toss. There is only one person for him to answer to, now.

If he could pull everything from his teammates around him, they would surely stand a chance; if he can wring everything from his body of flesh and fluid, he can reach an even higher potential. But when he tosses for himself, there is a line he cannot cross, and he lands on a run as his serve misses the deep corner by a hair; shoves his hair from his face, scrubs his face with his hands, refuses, refuses, vows to stay here until it hits.

He knows he is only one person. He knows, sooner or later, much, much later, he will break.

He hasn't broken yet.

 

★ Protect your hands when dealing with corrosive materials. 

The last of the tape unwinds with a _smack_ from the roll around his other finger. It seems he's misjudged how much he would need today, and he makes a mental note to retrieve a new roll from the box beside his door at home.

"One more," he hisses, a mantra against the raw sting in his skin. "One more."

 

★ If contact is made with eyes, flush immediately with water. 

The scoreboard is simple enough to read. He turns his back on it, a final whistle echoing shrill in his ears. His eyes fill, then empty, then he turns them toward those whose haven't. Hanamaki's are screwed shut, faint tracks down his cheeks; Kindaichi looks like he's swallowed a lump of tears and is choking on it. Iwaizumi's palm settles strong on Watari's shoulder, and by the time all of them are gathered before their coaches, their eyes are dry.

They have four months and change ahead; they have no time to waste here, lingering on this loss. He drives the niggling feeling of being wronged from his system, knows they must become stronger still, and as he catches the water bottle Matsukawa tosses to him, as he raises an eyebrow at Kunimi until he drinks from his own, too, he knows - with six people, seven, a whole shifting, steadying team, he has more than himself to answer to.

 

★ If ingested, seek medical treatment and/or professional advice immediately. 

He doesn't sit off to the side anymore.

His focus is no longer self-inflicted, his control no longer absolute. There are risks he has vowed to take, power coiled tight where it joins with every instinct he's honed, and none of it is broken by the cheers in his name; none of it is knocked away by the slaps to his back.

"Hey," Iwaizumi starts to say to him, but either he can see the answer clear in his murderous concentration or he doesn't need to hear an answer anyway, and he leaves it at that.

There is only the point before them, whatever face it may wear in disguise. He's gotten proficient at removing masks, after all; there is nowhere left for mistakes to hide.

 


	4. underwater // kageyama, surfacing from momentary paralysis // 340 words

 

He hadn't known Kunimi _could_ smile.

His perceptions have been rocking on their foundation this entire match, but right now, as he stares across the net at an impossible, unreachable sight, everything he's been chasing comes crashing down around his body. This isn't a matter of skill - no amount of practice could bring him a result like that, and he teeters on a precipice, eyesight narrowing even as his pupils blow wide, white noise thunderous and ringing in his ears.

He can't feel a thing. 

Later, he will recognize it as shock, as a momentary closing in of fear that here was a success he could not hope to grasp for himself. It is impossible to pull together a team on his own, he will begin to understand; it is an unreachable ideal for their sum to be as great as himself, multiplied. It frightens him to the core, the thought, the memory of putting up a set that no one is ready for. It will frighten him even more, the reality that trust goes both ways. That for all he needed to earn theirs, they, too, needed to earn his. That _earning_ wasn't an accolade, but a process, and one that would roll and roil around them all, making smiles from indifference, and pulling potential from dormancy.

Later, later, he will be crowned with a towel wet with someone else's sweat, but now he drowns in the loss of something that was never shared. Now, he stares through a net that catches nothing but a one-way line of sight, too late to be reciprocated, too empty to be filled.

He is no stranger to pressure. This, the weight that presses against him on all sides, in the form of voices he can hear but not comprehend, is a different monster entirely. But the beginnings of an arsenal sound through the fog, freely placed, maybe even earned, and he resolves: the only thing left to do is to learn how to kill it, and this time, not on his own.

 


	5. long // aone, watching some worms // 373 words

 

Aone's crossing over the rabbit ears of his shoelaces when he sees it - in the crack of soil between a house's surrounding garden wall and the sidewalk below the bus shelter, a worm is taking advantage of the rain, and wriggling its slow, curious way upward. There's another one a little ways off, but it soon buries itself back into the ground, vanishing from sight.

He hasn't played in the dirt for a good few years now, not for lack of _wanting to play_ , of course, but the scent of the freshly watered earth and the conscientious inching of worms through it bring back cheerful memories of finding his footing on the rocks by the river, and carefully watching all the tiny creatures that would float past. It smelled like rain there, too, regardless of whether it was actually raining. His boots would be splashed up to the places he tucked his pants into them, or filled with water if he stepped a bit too far. It wouldn't do any good to get his shoes soaked in any puddles today, though, and Aone glances over at the small pool around the bus stop sign with a small amount of wishing.

Something about the blind advance of the worm - though he can hear Futakuchi in his mind, informing him in delighted tones of how worms "taste" where they're going, instead, and how vital it is to the ecosystem and things that they're there, ingesting and excreting and aerating the soil, and - something about the blind advance of the worm makes him want to move a little himself, just for the feeling of it. He settles in a squat to watch.

There's one by a delicate plant of some sort now; it might even be the same one as before, but he can't really make out any distinguishing features. Counting segments proves to be difficult, as does trying to track the turns of it after it disappears again. Aone tilts his head to follow another half-visible worm and its stop-stretch-slide movements through the ground. The more, the better, he concludes with a solemn nod, and looks up at the call of his name down the street, this apparition waving toward him, approaching like another storm.

 


	6. sword // hana, wearing down, and not // 510 words

 

There's a photo slipped into one of the albums under their flat, blank TV. Hana holds a namesake as a keepsake in her left hand, and raises a triumphant stick with her right. (She knows the orientation of the photo is exactly as it was, ten, twelve years ago, because front-facing cameras weren't so common then.) Her feet are planted firm and splayed outward; her knees are ages from knocking together, scrapes halfway healed and left uncovered to breathe. She can't remember the context of her victory.

_"Don't sit like that, Hana-chan, it's unbecoming."_

She yells at a bunch of kids in the park for crowding around someone she likewise doesn't know, and gets her hair pulled for her efforts. Their hands clasp together in apologies they don't mean, sneering and snickering as they are; her head rings, rude words echoing in her ears like she's the bell of a shrine to a most unsavory god.

_"Hana, you need to learn to control yourself. No one is going to listen to you if you aren't calm."_

She does not mince her words, but she makes them nonetheless easier to swallow. Her tone is still too sharp, her word choice too rough, but if she ducks her head ever so slightly as she speaks, if she shrugs from conscience and lets her voice fade into a small smile, everyone's toes remain safe. She is all armor, no weapon.

She's been close to tripping over her feet lately, from angling her steps inward as she walks, from standing like her knees naturally bend toward each other, from startling out of her thoughts at the sound of laughter behind her. In the bright, warm light of her bathroom, snips of her hair float gently into the sink. It is the only gentleness that comes without intention.

_"Your grades are all fine, Misaki-san, but... It wouldn't hurt for you to participate more in class, hm?"_

There's a photo of a girl she's become a stranger to. Part of it had been necessity, had been nothing more than the smoothing of general propriety as she learned what manners were. Hana holds a namesake for appearance's sake in her left hand, and raises her cousin's phone with her right. ("You've got steadier hands than me, Hana-chan, you do it!") She grins, watches it soften, a peek of teeth, then pulls her lips back to where they were. It is not becoming in the slightest. Their temples press together as they both smirk widely into the camera, and it doesn't hurt at all.

As the wind picks up around them, her hair stays easily out of her eyes; she laughs like she means it, like she'll remember it, and she feels the dare that should be second nature rise with the sound, a wooden stick hardened into steel, invisible, flexible, a protection she is learning to breathe through.

The photo comes out sharp, like her cousin knew it would. Hana asks her to send it to her, too - this one's context a small victory of its own.

 


	7. shy // asahi, post-wakunan // on ennoshita and yamaguchi, 782 words

The sense of immediate responsibility has yet to recede from his chest entirely, it seems, and Asahi finds himself noticing like a snapped hair tie that they're a few members short. "Where's..." he catches Kinoshita's eyes, question tilting his voice a pitch higher. "Where's Ennoshita? And Yamaguchi?"

"Ennoshita went to the bathroom," Kinoshita says, though the concern in his tone is not something Asahi is insensitive to, is not something that seems to match the fact he shares. Beside him, Narita nods, lips pressed together on an addition unvoiced.

"Yamaguchi said he was going, as well," says a passing Tsukishima, not making eye contact. Asahi doesn't miss the altered wording.

They continue making their way across the wide-open second floor, both closer to and farther from the bright, penetrating gymnasium lights than they were before. Daichi's moving into a row of seats right at the railing, waving the rest of them over and apologizing briefly to the spectators already seated behind, and Asahi recognizes relief when he feels it, but this stabilizing of his breaths is no change from before; this sense of calm, of self-control, of knowledge that things will be fine, so long as he braces his core and sticks it through the landing, has not unfolded only now.

Was it adrenaline, earlier, that leaped to his rescue when Daichi left the situation in his hands? Spurred ahead of his nerves by the clear distress on Daichi's face when he had? Asahi had channeled every ounce of concentration into not backing down, not from this, not when they still had so much further to go, and although he had managed it, had managed not to be a liability of his own, in the particular calm of now, he fears it may have been at the expense of others he should have been concentrating on, as well.

Ennoshita had looked happy, when they won. And it wasn't just a grin of relief, either. Asahi had felt - is feeling - _is_ proud of him, welling up with warm, awestruck, grounded reminders of what his teammates are capable of. They've come a long way from the selves they were when they'd run away, he thinks. Both of them.

So he is worried, and his worry is mixing in with his feelings of being proud, second-guessing if there was something he had missed during the game, or afterward. Something he should have said, when he knows well that words are necessary to bring feelings into perspective - especially feelings that make someone feel like they need to retreat, to stay out of sight.

He shakes his head. He doesn't want to project himself onto anyone, however difficult it is to tell, sometimes, when his observations come from attempts at empathy, and when they border on wishes for what he has yet to understand.

  
 

Asahi is settling into his seat, kneepad pushed down to his ankle, when he hears Narita's quiet, relieved voice through the chatter of the stands around them. "Ennoshita!" he says, "Saved you a seat."

As Asahi turns to look, forgetting to be subtle about it, he catches sight of a face he doesn't know how to wish to understand.

Ennoshita's hair is wet. His eyes look like they might have been, too. They're dry now, though, and clear, and they meet Asahi's in a surprised little flash, probably drawn to his sudden movement, damn. But he only tilts his head forward in a small bow of a greeting, a smile to his expression that sets Asahi's rushing search for words at ease. He sits down next to Narita, nodding now toward Kinoshita, answering a question Asahi hadn't managed to hear.

Asahi turns back around, feeling a bit sheepish. He's glad, like he was before, that Ennoshita has them.

Some strengths still don't come readily to Asahi. He focuses on his breaths, on Suga and Daichi on either side of him, on the match pressing onward before them. The lights overhead are hot against his neck, drawing new sweat from the skin of his back. But he holds carefully onto the low voices behind him, a few seats away, and feels himself once again settle when Yamaguchi rejoins them, a set to his jaw that doesn't entirely soften when he smiles across his own saved seat.

He doesn't know what they're thinking, doesn't know what he himself is thinking, often enough. There's further to go. Even if they flinch, even if they move unsteadily, in starts and stops and restarts, that wide-open space of second chances is still there for them to enter. There is nothing, Asahi reminds himself through the flickering current of nerves in his consciousness, that is impossibly scary about that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> got way too ambitious with this one, ahahhaha,,  
> when yamaguchi chooses to abandon his jump float against wakunan the panels of reaction to him are given specifically to tsukishima, ennoshita, and asahi, which i've thought interesting and fitting ;-; tsukishima understands /him/, ennoshita understands how he will feel once it sinks in that he's run away, asahi understands the panic and unsurety that led him to make that second's decision to do a comparatively easy serve, and trying to wrap my thoughts around all of these relationships at once makes my head whirl, ,, 
> 
> but i've been putting off this 'three who ran away' character exploration thing for the longest time, so, here is a bit of it...!


	8. crooked // akiteru, in the midst of breaking down, and rebuilding // tsukishimas, 906 words

  


"Oh no," Kei calls out, inasmuch as a boy of his self-restraint can call out. "They're all melted!" 

Akiteru pokes his head around the leeks that stick out from the bag in his arms. Kei has a box of frozen ice cream bars in his, its cardboard flaps open like the lid of a treasure chest. Upon closer inspection, though, their treasure is indeed melted, and the squishy give of the wrapper's contents heralds a sticky mess if they were to claim it anyway. 

"It's no problem, Kei," he says, cheer as constant as the heat of the sun, these days. "We'll just put them in the freezer now, and wait till they harden again before we eat them." 

Kei pouts, an expression he's beginning to deny vehemently when Akiteru points it out, so he doesn't. He'd been looking forward to the nice, cool snack when they got home, too, so he understands Kei's disappointment. But he needs to set an example! So up he dials his grin, says, "Come on, help me put the groceries away, and we'll watch last night's drama episode, okay?" and leads Kei back outside to get the rest of the bags from the trunk of the car. 

Their mother ruffles his hair as he passes through the front entry, catching him stooped down to switch out his slippers for his shoes; Kei darts away, nearly careening into the doorframe in the process, and they share a laugh, bright and warm as the day outside. 

Several restocked cabinets and two episodes later – the heads of lettuce survived their brief tumble to the floor with only a few wrinkled leaves; the heads of the hero's secret informants were not so lucky – Kei leads the way back to the kitchen, straight to the freezer with no wasted movement. Their ice cream treats are refrozen, it feels like, so Akiteru snags two, and holds them both out to Kei to give him the first choice. They tear open the packaging, already anticipating the bloom of cold sweetness on their tongues, only to stop in their tracks at— 

Kei giggles, a sound that's becoming so rare that it distracts Akiteru anew, and peels off the rest of the wrapper. "They're _deformed_ , look!" 

That they are, Akiteru sees, but when he takes a bite of the chocolate coating, when the ice cream meets his taste buds in all the rewarding joy he had hoped for, the shape of it all ceases to matter very much anymore. He watches the way Kei's eyes light up as he tries his own ice cream, their change from making fun to having fun, and feels the same. 

For so long, he's been the source and instigator and reveler of that happiness. He holds it close, like Kei did the box in the car, and knows he will continue using all the methods he can think of, smart and sunny and stricken, ultimately, stupid, to keep it from melting away. 

It's been so long. He isn't sure he remembers exactly what shape it originally had. But that is all the more reason for him to be glad, that together they hold any shape at all.

  
  
  


Five years of avoided conversations and five weeks of careful, halting ones later, Akiteru parks his mother's car in the driveway and carries the groceries in on his own. She smiles at him from the living room, laptop open among the papers and printouts on the table, welcomes him home with a fraction of tiredness lifting from her eyes. 

"I'm home," he says, and wonders if Kei is, too. 

Five minutes later, the door to the kitchen slides open on a freshly oiled track, and Kei steps through as if his fleeting glance across the countertop is an accident. "Hey," Akiteru says, cheer as conditioned as the air inside the house, these days. "Got some of these. Want one?" 

He holds out the box of ice cream bars, tapping shut the freezer door with his other hand. The design of the packaging is different from what it used to be, years ago, but Akiteru can't fully tell how much of that is an update in itself, and how much is due to his own nostalgia. 

He puts the box back into the freezer after Kei shuffles one out, quiet thanks almost lost to the rush of cold air from the open door, and returns to his preparations for dinner. Something by way of nerves, absurd but present nonetheless, thaws in his chest. 

Behind him, a crinkle of a tear, smooth along the crease where the wrapper edges join, he imagines, and a small output of breath. 

"It's deformed," Kei says, too low for Akiteru to make out his tone, but when he turns around, bits of lettuce scattered across his hand, there's nothing closed off about his face. 

"Oh," he says, to keep himself from commenting on the soft amusement he finds there, and, "Here I'd thought I made it home soon enough," to keep it there a while longer. 

But a while isn't long at all, hasn't been since their shared wavelength dissolved, hasn't completely regrown since they started learning to acknowledge their own, separate happiness, or the stray dreams they held of reaching it. Still— 

"It tastes okay, though," Kei says, eyes on the countertop between them. He takes a tiny bite into the shape of it, messy components newly solid, and tentatively sweet.

  



	9. screech // yachi, to the sound of worrying // 732 words

There's a terrible, piercing sound as the car's wheels skid and turn at the same time, and a moment of terrible, pin-drop silence when it manages to stop.

Yachi watches the cat slink away unharmed, hands only halfway up to cover her mouth. Her breath comes out like she's slammed the brakes on her lungs, high, loud enough to draw the attention of the driver her way, too, and oh, no, what if they think it was _her_ cat that she let walk out into the street like that, what if they're rolling down their window to give her a piece of their mind, she noticed it was there! She watched the cat walk forward like the traffic lights meant nothing, and maybe they didn't, but they did to her, and she didn't do anything, she couldn't move at all when she saw the car coming straight for it. She's so glad the driver person has such quick reflexes, and speaking of the driver person, they're going to really let her have it —

"Hello?" they say, waving a little through the open window, "Are you alright?"

"I'm so sorry!" Yachi blurts, and barely keeps herself from tumbling over when she bows too quickly. Or, not too quickly, she could not apologize too quickly, and this person's expression is drawn like a thick curtain, like a product of a blunt pencil; she doesn't know what might become of her if they remember her as a cause of trouble. "I'm really very sorry! I should have prevented that from happening, are you all right? Is your vehicle all right?"

When she lifts her head, she makes eye contact, and the furrow of their eyebrows nearly sends her fleeing, apologies to heck, until through the film of plastic clinging to her conscience she notices they look less furious and more... confused.

"I'm completely fine," they tell her. "And so is my car, don't worry about it."

Is she worrying? Her heart is pounding its way upward. Oh. "Okay," Yachi says. "I won't! I'm glad to hear it!" Wrong order, wrong order, and she knows it will nibble at her later, but for now, she gives the driver person a smile, to show how she isn't worrying about it anymore.

"Okay," they say, and glance behind them, and back up to the still-green light. There are few cars around at the same time, here, usually, and today is no exception; there's no one waiting patiently or impatiently behind them, which Yachi had already taken note of before she held them up further with her apology, but she is glad, also, that they seem concerned about blocking the road, too. She is glad for a lot of things, today.

"Please get back safe," she says, swallowing down the reflexive stream of _not that she's insinuating they weren't being safe in their driving up to now, or up to before, with the cat_ , and _maybe they're travelling from their home to somewhere else, not heading back now_. She raises her hand in a little wave in response to their nod through the still-open window, feeling her heart begin its descent back to where it should be as their tires roll smoothly down the unobstructed road.

The worries of the past few minutes threaten again to well into Yachi's throat, a lump she wants to wail away, but she has learned more effective ways than that, or than swallowing it entirely, and she runs through them with a critical eye, doing her best to toss away the ones without solid foundations, and the ones she can't do anything about now. The cat gazes at her with unreadable eyes, piercing even in memory; she gives it a careful pat, a gentle suggestion that it maybe could be a little more careful around streets and their potential killing machines, then lets it slink away, not a backward glance from either of them. The driver person is fine; they'd said so, too.

Yachi remains, a few steps back from the curb, a portion of her attention on the paved lanes and sidewalks, another portion settling, snow in the summer afternoon, affording her peace, at last. Perhaps it will only be for now - most probably, it will only be for now - but Yachi fills her lungs with new air, lifting the pressure off the brakes. She looks both ways, and crosses the street.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhh..... this one was an exercise in working through something i became fundamentally dissatisfied with before i could even finish it -^- 
> 
> i ended up writing more than half the day after i started it, but i learned some new things about yachi and how i see her and how i can go about reworking words without rewriting them, so it wasn't all disappointing ;;; almost a third through now, i'll keep at it!


	10. gigantic // tsukishima, observing defied expectations // on nishinoya, 638 words

 

Tsukishima's first thought: He's even smaller than Hinata.  
His second: He's louder than Hinata, and Kageyama, and Tanaka, combined.  
Third: He's friendlier than Sugawara, or maybe that's just on account of how _loud_ he is about the friendliness.

A thought a few minutes later, after Tsukishima'd stopped counting: he's only ever seen someone's grin drop off the edge of their face that abruptly once before.

 

 

It's dinner three days before they play Nekoma, and Tsukishima doesn't feel hungry anymore, so he puts the last bite of food in his mouth and puts the plate in the sink. He lays the fork down quietly so it doesn't scratch the dull steel. On his way out the door to the hallway, _excuse me_ and _thank you for the food_ rising reflexively to his tongue, he catches sight of a cup toppling toward the floor, just before the flash of an arm materializes its hand right beneath it.

"Nice save, Nishinoya," says Kinoshita, or so Tsukishima assumes, through the shovelful of mixed rice in his mouth.

Whatever Nishinoya says in return is entirely lost on Tsukishima's ears; if Kinoshita is eating by shovel, Nishinoya is driving a bulldozer with his right hand, the other plonking the cup back onto the table with glee. Somehow, not a drop is spilled. He's still got three bowls and a plate piled high in front of him, sauce drowning his rice and vegetables surfacing from his sauce. There's an entire chop of meat sliding down like a nicely browned toboggan - this one, he lets fall, and it does so with a _splat_ that's audible over the chatter in the dining area.

With no reason to keep standing in the no-man's area right in front of the doorway, Tsukishima tries to forget the disgusting noise, and this team's monstrous appetites along with it, and leaves.

 

 

He can't put his finger on what exactly it is about Nishinoya that draws his attention.

He's running odds through his mind, knowing they're nearing zero for this set and running them again for the next. It would be fine to just drop this one, seeing as there's no way they're taking it back, advisable, even, and yet— How he had neglected to factor in Nishinoya. How he had neglected the constant that is Nishinoya's instinct to keep anything from dropping.

He can't figure out what is is about Nishinoya that holds his attention, that pulls forward a measure of respect that isn't measured at all. It isn't hot air filling his head as he yells. It isn't hot blood that leads him to puff up to his full height and declare his presence to be analogous to Ushijima's. His talent, his _skill_ , his refusal to be satisfied - it radiates from his insubstantial height in an aura as inadvisable to touch as steam, and just as dangerous to face when concentrated.

His eyes are wide open, focused on Ushijima like he plans to prevent his shadow. Tsukishima doesn't know why he can't look away.

 

 

First thought: That was it.  
Second: Whistle.  
Third: Nothing that forms an actual word, but that is punctuated with more exclamation marks than he would ever transcribe.

There's a head in his stomach, arms around his middle tighter than an outgrown belt, the floor crashing into his back as he's bowled over. Yamaguchi's yelling his name and other tired things, and Tsukishima has neither the breath nor the will to protest.

The gymnasium echoes; for the second time today, Shiratorizawa's stands are overpowered by support being hung from the rafters for Karasuno, with clapping and cheering reaching high tide in participants and volume. He'd forgotten, somewhere along the line, that they shouldn't have been able to win. He's forgotten when it was that the expectation ceased to matter to him. He's only seen Nishinoya cry once before.

 


	11. run // hanayama, in consideration of siblings // with takeru and two makotos, 1407 words

Hanayama's just settling onto a bench with an arm digging into his bag for the snacks he's brought for them both, when he hears his name being called from a little ways off.

"Hey!" Takeru waves, his sister's grin a bright reflection beside him. They slow to a walk, stopping before the bench with sweat dripping from their hairlines (well, as it were, in Takeru's case). "Fancy meeting you here, Hana-yan," he says between quick, deep breaths.

"And Makoto-chan, too!" says Makoto, shaking out her hair and swiftly redoing her ponytail. "How are you today? It's beautiful out, isn't it, a good day for a walk."

Makoto looks up at Hanayama, confusion winning over momentary shyness in her face, and he echoes her: "I didn't think you had met Makoto before...?"

"Oh, no," she says, and pokes a finger into Takeru's arm, ignoring the face he makes at her as he rubs the spot afterward. "I've just heard a lot of, _Makoto, you wouldn't believe how nice and quiet Hana-yan's little sister is_ , and, _Makoto-chan doesn't run off without waiting for someone to go with her_ , and, _Why couldn't you have been more like that when you were her age_ , so! No hard feelings, though, promise," she adds, smiling again at Makoto.

Hanayama treasures the musical twinge of pride in his chest as he watches Makoto blink her eyes wide and uncurl her small shoulders, meeting this stranger's attention as bravely as she'd walked into her new school last spring. She tries a smile; it comes out, as usual, as lazy as his own, but he knows the nervousness in it like the clasp of a hand around his. "You're Makoto, too, Makoto-san?" she asks.

Despite her earlier recollections, Makoto looks delighted with the coincidence. "That's right! I think my brother prefers you over me," she says in a stage whisper. "It's nice to meet you at last!"

"You know I was never being 100% serious about those things!" Takeru says, elbowing her gently as he grins, right on cue.

"You're always 100% serious," Makoto tells him, and laughs a near-familiar laugh, eyelids scrunching closed, carefree happiness gathering a little more than Hanayama's used to at their corners. "Makoto-chan, hey, how about I treat you to snacks? I've gotten pretty hungry myself."

Makoto turns to Hanayama again, a question in the silent shape of her mouth. "Is it okay?" she asks out loud, surprising him.

He nods without hesitation at her spark of adventurousness, a song in his chest. "Of course," he says, and ruffles her hair before looking up at Makoto, who for once is standing taller than he is, on account of his seat on the park bench. "You don't have to, but thank you, it's very kind of you."

She waves off his formality as she always does, reaching her hand out in offering to Makoto. "It's my pleasure! Not every day I get to be _double Makotos_ with someone, you know."

Takeru laughs, not unkind, even through all the long-suffering gripes he's let himself share with Hanayama after many a practice, and only because he knew Hanayama could understand where his feelings were coming from. His expression softens when he catches sight of Makoto, trying a tiny wave, a belated hello in his direction, her other hand held like a feather in his sister's. He mirrors her with both fondness and practiced ease, then seems to realize something. "Wait a second, Makoto," he says, a hint of a long-suffering gripe to come in his voice, "Do you even have money on you right now?"

She hums, "Mm... Well, no... Help me out, Takeru-nii?" There's nothing sheepish about the tilt of her head as she smiles at him; nothing new, it seems, about the way Takeru just sighs a little and reaches into the pack belted around his waist. "Yay! Thanks a bunch! Shall we, Makoto-chan?"

Makoto bows solemnly to Takeru. "Thank you very much," she says, clear and sweet, not lazy at all, and Hanayama thinks he can see the handmade arrow fly true into Takeru's heart.

They watch without a word between them as their sisters cross the sunny street and enter the convenience store on its corner, Makoto holding the door for both of them. Hanayama can hear her lively voice from here, though he can't make out what's she's saying.

"You'd think I'd be used to this by now," Takeru says, arrow a curiosity in his palms. He looks up from them, shakes his head at Hanayama, and sits down where Makoto was before, eyes just as wide.

Hanayama has a laugh in his throat when he replies. "Used to what? Cute younger siblings?" It's true.

"They're not cute," Takeru says, as he has many times before, and Hanayama lets him keep his peace. "Well, yours is, maybe that's why she surprises me all the time. What year's she in now? Fourth?"

"Yeah," Hanayama nods. "Makoto's gonna be in high school soon, too, huh?"

Takeru leans back, then forward, stretching his calf out with two hands around the tread of his right sneaker. "She's gonna be a _demon_ ," he confirms, and looks thoughtful. "I wonder if she wishes she had a little sister."

"She doesn't have to count it out," says Hanayama, snickering quietly as Takeru groans with every ounce of melodrama he allows himself to hold onto. "Is your wallet gonna survive?"

Takeru switches legs; holds, releases. "Perfectly fine," he says. "She doesn't ask often at all, and even so, she usually tries to do something for me later on."

The look on his face is one Hanayama understands. "They're sure growing up, aren't they," he says, wondering at the way Makoto had peeked out from her shell today.

"Don't get all nostalgic on me now, Hana-yan!" Takeru elbows him in the ribs, but says, "Man, it feels like just yesterday that Makoto was skipping off on her own, not a care in the world."

"She cares as much as you do, now."

Takeru snorts. "What's that supposed to mean? And anyway, you're lucky, you don't have a whole line of them waiting in the wings."

"Maybe," Hanayama says. "But could you really have it any other way?"

The dinosaurs and special effects play once more through Takeru's stare of suffering. "Could I?" he says, and grins, eyelids scrunching closed. "Nah, I really couldn't."

"I figured," Hanayama laughs, knocking his knee into Takeru's. "Oh, hey, do you want water or something? I have extra, since I was going to have these snacks with Makoto, but..."

"Ah! That'd be great, thanks, Hana-yan." After a few gulps, he lets himself breathe, taking a measured pace like it's second nature. "She really goes _hard_ ," he says, half wonder, half pride.

Hanayama nods, knowing it says something, that Makoto keeps pace with Takeru when they take to the streets together. Takeru and his impressive stamina, all the longer lasting because of his impressive restraint, when it comes to resisting the urge to start racing at full power as some of their teammates find themselves doing at times. "She's got a tournament coming up, too, right?" he asks, familiar with the timing.

"Same days as ours," Takeru says. "Worked out like that this year. Gah, I wanted to go watch her play."

Hanayama pats his shoulder, imagining how he feels with a sympathetic wince. Makoto had had an orchestra recital on one of the qualifying tournament days for the Inter-High, back in June, and even though she'd been nothing but accepting of the fact, even though he'd arrived at school in time to load up the bus with a small, precious charm tucked into his bag, he had needed an extra dozen minutes or so to warm up that day, to reach his normal levels of focus.

"She'll do amazing, though," Takeru says, "Regardless." There's none of the _well, of course, she learned from some of the best, after all_ , that his older brother might have added, with a proud clap to both of his siblings' shoulders. But there's the same beat of approval, flowing strong as only they can share.

Hanayama feels a grin stretch easy across his face. It looks lazy, he knows, but everyone close to him knows it to carry the opposite meaning. There's hard work to support it, and attention, and love he's learned in armfuls. "She definitely will," he says, and Takeru reflects his own confidence right back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might say this one.. ran away from me
> 
> i've gotten really fond of wakunan, so i'm happy i finally got around to writing some of them! i find it rather sweet that both hanayama's and takeru's current concerns involve their family ;^;


	12. shattered // atsumu, defeating personal illusions // with a ghost of osamu, 1070 words

 

When Atsumu is five, it is on reflex, out of self-defense. "Baby, you need to be careful," cries his father, as he holds his arm in a gentle but firm grip and picks the glass out from his skin. "Why did you do that?"

Atsumu cries, his of real tears, though his voice is just as distorted from pain. He peeks around his father's shoulder at the yawning, dark gap on the wall, shiny splinters in the sink, his hairbrush still as a bomb in the middle of it all. "It moved," he says, trembling like a curtain in the wind. "I didn't, but it did."

 

  
It's not just his reflection. He can't escape his shadow unless there's no light source, as he learns in school from a science lesson. Atsumu scoffs as he copies down answers to fill the blanks in his workbook, knowing he's not like this rule, knowing his shadow is all the stronger when he can't see a thing.

"Something you'd like to share, Miya-kun?" comes the sharp rap of his teacher's voice.

"No, sensei," he says. Not even if he could.

 

  
The curtains are closed over the darkened streets outside, his bedside lamp flicked off at the conclusion of a book. No light source, save the pale filtered kind, but his eyes are shut, anyway. His shadow moves, its voice in his head. "You gotta play nice with the other kids, 'Tsumu."

What a stupid name to shorten to. Atsumu doesn't protest, doesn't think about the fact that he has never known how to hold back on that front.

It doesn't last, seeing as that's the reason no one plays nice with _him_. "I don't gotta do anything," he muffles into his pillow, moving his face so he doesn't fall asleep on the wet patch.

 

  
Their new mirror is the same as the one he'd broken. When he looks at its smooth edges, flush against the patched-up wall, it's hard to remember what the jagged teeth of it had looked like.

His reflection tilts its head, knowing he's avoiding eye contact. It doesn't matter. He knows what it looks like without having to see.

 

  
"If you want to stay on as a setter, you're going to have to make some real effort to match up with the spikers," the middle school coach says. "No one's going to just go along with your whims, Miya."

 

  
He piles another pudding cup on the left-front corner of his desk. It's empty, which makes it move in unpredictable directions when he flicks it off, aiming for the garbage basket four steps away. A few are already scattered across the bare wood, each dented in at least one place. The desk light beats warm on the side of his neck.

"Stop sulking," says his voice. "You're kind of starting to piss me off."

"What, only now?" He bares his teeth, all glass and broken plaster. "Took you only a million years."

You're not anywhere near a million years old, says the telling stillness. His profile stretches like a cat across the floor. "When're you gonna get it in your head that you can't play by yourself?"

 _In my head?_ Atsumu thinks. _You're already here_.

 

  
No one notices his shadow is different. No one asks why he's always staring at the floor between rallies, why he walks right past all the sinks in the bathroom until he gets to the one at the end, the one with the cracked mirror.

(It's to remind himself which voice is his.)

 

  
He's always concentrated better in silence; years of reacting to the slightest of flickers in his periphery and the quietest, most impossible of breaths have conditioned his attention to stop, drop, and listen. Or, certainly to _hear_ , if not strictly to listen.

He takes four steps from the end line, each smacking a death toll into the air. The ball, when he hits it with a flick of his forearm and not a waver of his wrist, sails over the net like hundreds before. Its movements are unpredictable. This one lands left-back, in bounds. Just where he was aiming.

 

  
"Higher, if you could," Kita says to him. "I would appreciate the dash of extra time to aim."

Miya smirks, smooths out his voice. "Of course I could."

 

  
They're watching a one-time-only segment on the television, briefest of introductions for every team that's made it to the Spring High. From a prefecture he didn't catch, a murder dressed in black, only a few shades off from his own uniform. His eyes go wide in the dark.

His shadow doesn't move much anymore, doesn't speak unless he wants it to. It does so now.

"Like you'd ever be able to do something like that," it says, drawl as low as a grave.

"But I _want_ to," he says. "I wanna try it. I could do it, I bet."

A flicker at the edge of a floorboard. "Yeah, 'Tsumu, maybe if you found someone who could match you."

 

  
They're watching today's matches on a TV in the computer lab. This time, Miya sees that quick more than once, as the two in black break it out every time a chance strikes.

Aran gives a soft whistle. "That's incredible," he says. "Must be the only one in the world, huh?"

"I recognize that setter," says Kita. "He was invited to train at the national team's facilities in Tokyo last month."

Even Suna looks a little interested at that. "With the National Youth, whatsit, Intensive training camp?"

Kita nods, a sharp, downward jab of his chin. "Not every player there was from a team that's competing here," he says, indicating the TV, "but many of them are. Both are where the strongest players gather, after all."

Miya hears all of this, eyes flashing between the screen and the tangle of his fingers in his lap. _Impressive_ , he thinks. _I wouldn't know_.

 

  
When Miya is sixteen, it is without needing a replacement.

There are a few toothpaste marks on the mirror, ghost-white over metallic shine, and a reflection, getting bigger. He stops leaning forward. His reflection stops, too. The sink is dry, clean as bone, waiting to catch whatever happens to fall into it. Miya stares at himself, hungry.

"I could be more," he says, flicking away the curtain his fringe hangs over his eyes. His grin is patched-up, straining at the seams. "But I think, so could we."

 


	13. teeming // ushijima, in a strange pocket of life // third years' graduation, 1311 words

Ushijima doesn't immediately register that anything is amiss. His diploma is new and solid in his hand as he shuffles back into his row, shifting one seat down at a time until he's back to where he started. The tickle of perfume from every pinned flower in the room has him stifling the urge to twitch his nose.

Everything is just the same, from the way he can't quite fit his elbows between the armrests to the backs of his yearmates' heads in the rows in front of him, and he keeps his eyes at rest on the stage, where their names are being read.

"Ushijima Wakatoshi," comes his name through the overhead speakers.

He starts, an involuntary widening of his eyes, a tightened grip to confirm that yes, he's still holding his diploma; they've already called his name. When he looks to the podium, the person speaking into the microphone is no one he recognizes.

"Ushijima Wakatoshi," they say again, the suggestion of their eyes nonetheless piercing his own. "Welcome to your afterlife."

He opens his mouth. A breath comes out.

"What do you mean by that?" he asks, vaguely intrigued by the way this person doesn't seem to have a face. No wonder he didn't recognize them.

They'd heard his question, from the flicker of substance where their mouth might have been. But they don't speak again, only emit some kind of sound that is reminiscent of a laugh, an echo of humanity passing through the microphone and into the wires of the ceiling, filling every corner of the room like a shower of rain.

Ushijima looks around, hoping to find an answer elsewhere, or at least another person who could speak to him in words.

All he finds is that everything he rests his eyes on, from the bolted-down auditorium chairs to the backs and profiles of his yearmates' heads, seems to blur and fade around the edges as soon as he tries to focus on them. Like the dark spots in a grid of squares, or the image of a dream at dawn.

He doesn't know where he is anymore, and the loss of that constant ground is unsettling.

There's a hand on his arm. "All right, Wakatoshi?" Oohira says, peering up at him. There's a smile where his mouth is, the familiar curve that tells Ushijima he's privately amused with something, but he doesn't ask, glad enough to see him.

"I'm all right," he says, nodding once. "Do you know where we are?"

"The afterlife, apparently," says Oohira. He laughs a little; the sound grounds itself in Ushijima's ears, more solid than rain, but just as light. "I don't remember dying, though, do you?"

Ushijima shakes his head. "Just this," he says, holding up his diploma, only—

"Well, that's strange," Oohira says. "I've lost mine, too."

The floor reflects oddly when Ushijima casts his eyes over it, wondering if he'd dropped his senses like a baton. Something about it reminds him of the dark floor in an aquarium exhibit, from the slow, shifting patches of light where people aren't standing, down to the way it feels more like a memory than anything real, or present.

"Are you seeing this, Wakatoshi?"

He is.

At some point during his relief at a familiar face, he had stopped trying to focus in on surroundings that didn't want to be seen, and they had morphed into yet another echo of what they should have been.

He doesn't recognize the uniforms of the people-beings coming into view all around him and Oohira, but the occasion for their small bunches of flowers and ribbons, he does. The tone of their voices, wordless but growing in volume as if controlled by some invisible dial, he recognizes as well, as the murmured confusion he feels in his own chest. It proves impossible to make eye contact with them.

"Graduates, huh," says Oohira. He seems to be taking it in stride as well, and while Ushijima knows he would feel fine, overall, if he were standing in this strange version of their auditorium on his own, he is more fine with Oohira's company.

He looks around again, among the close-stepping strangers of a similar theme, somehow never brushing against him or making themselves clearly heard. This time, he finds another pair of eyes meeting his directly.

Across the room, Soekawa raises a hand into the air, greeting punctuated by a turn to his side, where a figure who looks to be Semi is facing the opposite direction, hand against the glass of the window. He has a bit of a haunted expression on when Ushijima gets a better angle on his face, but his smile is wide when he sees them in turn.

Soekawa says something, lost in the imperceptible buzz of interactions around them; Semi tilts his head, nods. They must be able to hear each other, too.

All four of them can hear each other, it turns out, once Ushijima and Oohira make their way through the rippling strangers and to the window side of the room. "Why do you suppose only we can see each other properly?" Soekawa asks. "Because we're from the same school?"

Oohira has joined Semi by the window, other pairs and groups beside, their opacity lowered as though they were the ones on the opposite side of the glass.

"What is it?" Ushijima asks them. He steps around a figure adjusting their hair into a bun, and walks toward the window himself. There are no fish, but in the midst of a water break he catches sight of a familiar school, bottles he remembers filling not too long ago lined up along the side of the gym, one each.

He understands the expression Semi was wearing earlier, now.

Oohira isn't smiling anymore, hand outstretched like Semi's was, as well, fingers splayed on the glass as if to make sure it was solidly there.

Soekawa grimaces, having come to the conclusion already. "I don't think these other people are seeing the same thing."

Before them, practice resumes. They watch.

"Shirabu's doing some good work," Semi says at one point. They have all reached an unspoken agreement not to mention just _how_ good their former teammates are doing.

Or, rather than teammates, the state of them being former _kouhai_ gathers at the surface of this stolen image, a film over a film that has been fast-forwarded through time. This team is much more cohesive than they would have expected, if this window of discordant presents were not the case.

Ushijima doesn't make guarantees in others' names. But he watches these individuals and their hard work on their areas of improvement, believing as he has, as fact, that they are in the right place.

"There you are!" calls Tendou's voice, cementing the fact that they, also, are in the right place, however unsettling. "I've been looking all over! Well, hey," he says upon reaching them, "this sure is weird. Kinda creepy." He moves closer, eyes wide in view of the window.

"Noticed straight away, didn't you," Oohira says, amusement returning to his face like a healthy color. "I guess I'd expect no less."

"What's Tsutomu turning around for!" Tendou laughs. The sound is bright in their dull surroundings. "It's like he's still waiting for a certain someone's reactions."

Ushijima tilts his head, considering. "If he's waiting to compete with me, he should know he doesn't need to."

"I think he does know," Oohira says. "Just..."

Semi nods. "Habits are hard to break."

They continue watching, several beats out of time.

Goshiki continues to look toward someone invisible whenever he ends a rally with a well-executed play.

The last thing Ushijima hears, just before it clicks in his mind and the room starts to change again, is Tendou's delighted concession: "Looks like you were right after all, Wakatoshi-kun. We've all _passed on_."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not know what to do with today's prompt aside from mess around with the phrase 'teeming with life' 
> 
> i envisioned this as something short and ridiculous and amusing  
> evidently i couldn't quite crack it


	14. fierce // yui, keeping on // 410 words

 

"Good morning, Yui," accompanies the opening rattle of the gymnasium doors. Chizuru steps through, shoes in hand. "I'm sorry I'm late."

"It's okay!" Yui tells her, smiling wide as she waves. She's been practicing her serves, with their setter still not here, and her shoulder is starting to settle into the movements. "Take your time warming up," she says, same as always.

It's May. Tournament season feels like impending doom, if she lets herself imagine how it will end up going - so she doesn't. Her captaincy sits in her chest like an omen all on its own.

 

  
She walks home on streets paved with moonlight, stores closed and windows alternating in houses, light on, light off, light wavering as if someone has pressed a switch they didn't mean to touch.

It is frightening beyond anything to have faith in what hasn't had the time or the passion to grow. But Yui clings onto a spark, resurrected by confidence in an even ground, and holds it out, an offering to the night before.

What she needs is purpose. What she needs is to mean to touch it. She burns her regrets like incense, flames in her fingertips as she crosses out today's date on her calendar: _Practice 7AM, after school_.

Her jersey is crisp and spotless; it still smells a bit like the cardboard box it had been stored in. She tucks it into her bag, turning her nerves into resolve, and resolves not to let her nerves show tomorrow.

 

  
When the other team wins, Yui gathers up the members of her own, hands to shoulders and middles of backs where needed. The light in her chest is wavering; she breathes in and out to keep it steady.

Anger is a stranger to her, someone else's child, and she has never known how to reach out and pull others toward her. Tears fall when she is alone, when yesterday's smoke rises in wisps, in wistful, wishful thoughts, searching for a place to flood.

All of it settles, as it always does.

But her cheeks are filled with sparks as they lift in a smile, and Yui holds her jersey like a letter in a time capsule, impossible to edit, yet impossible to put away and take back out the same.

She nods hard, bites her lip gently. It's June. Time will be measured by a different calendar, now, she knows. The places she marks it will be hers for the taking.

 


	15. mysterious // akaashi, unfilled blanks // on bokuto, 577 words

 

"Geez, he's so simple-minded," Akaashi hears, a shake of the head in their tone. Part of him agrees, as he can observe the fact of it right before him, as Bokuto throws an arm around Sarukui's shoulders and laughs in his ear, all troubles of the last ten rallies forgotten. Another part of Akaashi thinks, _if he were really so simple, should I not be able to understand him?_

"What's that expression for?" Konoha says, walking next to him in strides that suggest they've just finished running a half-marathon. "If you're thinking about what to do with that guy, though, I get it."

"Is there anything to _be_ done," Shirofuku laments, a description Akaashi uses because this mild sigh of hers is the closest to despair she ever becomes. She points her thumb over toward him. "This one sure tries his best to find out, though."

Akaashi inclines his head. "I appreciate your help in that regard."

Amusement stretches over Shirofuku's face as if waking from a nap, and she presses the bottom of a water bottle into his arm until he gets the message and takes it for himself. "Don't say unnecessary things to me, Akaashi," she says. "We all would like if he could feel at his best."

Bokuto has Konoha in his clutches now, regaling him with excited play-by-plays and praise alike, which means Akaashi is next, soon enough. He takes the opportunity to observe from this short distance, cross-references on hold in his mind.

"I just don't get you," Konoha is saying tiredly, knuckles tapping against Bokuto's forehead as he nonetheless doesn't try to shrug his weight off his shoulders. "One minute you're unable to remember how to hit, the next you're telling me exactly what hits you made in the last fifteen minutes? Where's all this when we're talking strategy, huh?"

Bokuto only leans in a bit more, features alight. "It's— You know! The thing," he says with confidence. "Where if I'm super focused on one thing, all the other things just slip around to the back! Like when you're taking a test, right, and the first part is all multiple choice, and then it changes to filling in the blanks, and you've gotta take a minute to switch up your whole technique."

"That's," Konoha starts. He seems lost for words as he processes Bokuto's; Bokuto looks at him expectantly, wearing the bright satisfaction of an analogy well made. A huff escapes Konoha, defeated, and annoyed about not being able to pinpoint how he had been. "I hate when you almost make sense," he says, sticking his elbow in Bokuto's side, where he's only met with unfazed, victorious laughter.

Akaashi runs through their exchange again as he puts his arms through the sleeves of his jacket. He revisits Bokuto's explanation as he zips up, and tries once more to figure out what kind of sense he'd been making as he fixes the part of his sock that has scrunched oddly in his shoe over the course of the match's endgame.

Comprehension remains just out of reach, a puzzle with a scattering of blanks and their unfound pieces. All his cross-references are useless when he cannot seem to make out the shapes needed to join them, but he continues to wonder about simplicity as a relative property, revising items in mental lists out of dogged determination that eventually, little by little, the blanks within the subject of them all will be filled in.

 


	16. fat // kawanishi, things behind a mailbox door // 959 words

 

Today, it's a small magnet, no note.

Kawanishi slips it into an inner pocket of his jacket, shuts the mailbox door, and leaves for work, autumn filling his nose like the scent of sleeping coals.

His deskmate's glasses are only weeks old, but they loosen for the fifth time that he's been able to see. She's got her portable case of mini screwdrivers at the ready, eyes squinting in concentration and near-sightedness as she lines up the smallest one with the culprit in a corner of the frame.

Kawanishi's pressing _send_ on an email response when he hears her mutter a swear and roll back in her seat. He looks over to see her glasses alone on her desk, one lens popped out, and her beneath it, one leg bent as she searches the floor.

"Damn screw," she says, and raises her voice to address him. "Hey, do we have any paper clips?"

A glance over the clear plastic drawers of odds and ends between their workspaces tells him, "Yeah, how many do you need?"

"Just one," she says, rising to a knee, then standing with a soft _whoosh_ of annoyance. "Gotta pick this screw out of a crack in the floor."

Kawanishi pauses, drawer tugged open and waiting for instruction. "I might have something for you," he says, and reaches for his jacket.

 

 

Today, a note reads, _save until nightfall_. Kawanishi pulls away the tape that holds the box closed, and lets it burst at the creases into his palm. Probably one size up would have fit its contents better.

He spares a moment to take in the bicycle tire that emerges, unrolling from thin cardboard confines like a cloud of ink in water. The shape isn't conducive to a sleek silhouette, but it isn't the most unwieldy object he's been entrusted with by far, so into a pocket it goes as he heads out for the day.

Heat shimmers above the pavement, making car hoods wash out at the edges and people sway on their feet as they walk. If it weren't for the soaked heaviness of the air over the city, it wouldn't seem much like the preface to rain at all.

Kawanishi pauses at the entrance to the station when he catches sight of someone bent to check the back wheel of their bicycle. He can see it deflating further from here, and the rubber coil weighs in his pocket like a stir to life. The beat of the sun weighs even harder.

He's settling into a seat in the blissful aircon of a subway car when they dash through the open doors, Suica card in hand and a minor twist to their mouth, but otherwise not seeming much worse for the worn-out wheel outside.

Kawanishi lets out his breath, inaudible beneath the cool hum around them. The tire in his pocket keeps its silence, patient as a storm, purpose waiting on the horizon.

 

 

His mailbox begins to quiet, eventually, packets and notes both trickling down in frequency until they shift from routine to curiosity. Today, it's the latter.

Every item Kawanishi can remember - which, in the sense of patterns and consistencies, is all of them - has fit neatly in the palm of his hand, sometimes small enough to disappear within closed fingers, sometimes light enough to forget he had it in a pocket at all. This is an envelope as big as his mailbox itself, which, granted, is not that big, but it is stuffed with something nonetheless too bulky to be discreet.

A scarf spills forward when he slides a finger along the seal, its waves of knitted sky as soft as a new sweatshirt and twice as thick. It reminds him instantaneously of home. _For an old friend_ , reads the note that floats into view, and Kawanishi stares, burrows into his own scarf, wonders what all the deliveries of the past few years were leading toward, if they had finally given him a destination who didn't exist.

Loneliness is a different kind of curiosity. But his awareness of it slips in and out like a tangible object visiting his pocket, and it has always ended up in someone else's palm in just the same way.

He walks through tired streets doing their best to come alive; most of the time, they manage it in flying colors, colors that snag the corners of his eyes and have him taking detours like wings have sprouted from his heels.

He always watches. He is alone, but not really lonely.

Kawanishi remembers doing things with other people who might have been friends. In university there had been many a late night combini run, many a cramped common room swimming in highlighter ink, many an acquaintance lost to the sweep of their own purpose. In high school he had learned to stand in the reserves, in the midst, at the forefront of a team. Messages had gone silent too naturally to be called awkward, and now he only unfolds them like notes in a different hand, only stores them in a small pile of shoeboxes because there is no opposing reason to throw them away.

There's a cup of coffee in his hand when a color catches his eye. A string of unvoiced swears in a face like thunder's persistent echoes, and a plastic bag trying to become a mural. He hasn't been cutting his own fringe anymore, it seems, or he has gotten much more proficient at it in the interim.

Kawanishi watches as he tugs uselessly at his short collar, breath like the smokestack of a train that has yet to arrive. He is older. He might have been a friend.

"Shirabu," he finds himself saying, and curiosity spills from his hands like a tide.

 


	17. graceful // hyakuzawa, finding his footing // 511 words

 

After a while, he had stopped tripping his own feet. Exempt from the difficulty of serve receives, and for the most part protected from the sudden turn of a rally, he had settled into a rhythm dependent only on his vertical height, and his ability to get it even higher. 

Here, he is exempt from nothing. Hyakuzawa does not miss the thin disdain on Goshiki's face when their first passes to each other are interrupted by his form needing adjustment. The below-breath mutters of the other players as they prepare for two-on-twos do not escape him either. He folds himself onto the floor, against the wall, alone; here, he is the shortest he has ever been. 

Since their loss in August, Hyakuzawa has tried even harder to emulate a sponge, information and technique alike proving precious for him to internalize. But experience cannot be countered with something like height, because no matter how far he tries to stretch, he seems only to be reaching toward the ground. 

 _Why was I invited here?_ he thinks as he all but falls into a corner with a bottle of water. He isn't tired, not in the way of his limbs feeling too heavy to move; the knowledge that he doesn't belong soaks into every crevice of his mind, affecting his ability to make them. 

He's been humiliated enough, surely, though his face is also flushed from exertion. Despite the sweat rising all over his skin, he cannot move enough to compensate for anything. 

The idea of height being a talent is not one that has ever occurred to him.

He adds it to his mind like a desperate cup of water to a burning stew, Karasuno's proactive number ten crouched before him, stirring, as if Hyakuzawa has ever been worth the fascination. As if he could be. 

 _Relax_ , he tells him, like he just wants him to stand still as the scale is brought down on his head, and Hyakuzawa considers anew – that if a talent is something great that someone doesn't have to work for, if a talent is something that is there  _to be worked on_ , his height is a talent like anyone else's individual specialty. 

It's a matter of how he uses it, which doesn't have to mean waiting as his teammates support him. He can support himself if he makes himself some time, and that, in turn, gives him the space he needs to run up, jump, stretch as high as he can, and support them with the point he scores. 

A new rhythm, beats lengthened. A gentle arc upward. 

Hyakuzawa slams the ball down like he has been taught to do; smiles, like he finds he wants to. Hinata looks at him right in the eyes, as no one else has really managed when facing him. 

Fortune alights on their bodies in different ways, their clumsy movements needing time and adjustment to meet what they could be capable of, but Hyakuzawa picks himself up where he can, and is glad they are both here, both working toward something more. 

 


	18. filthy // hanamaki, compromises on household chores // with kunimi, 1333 words

 

"Kunimi, would it kill you to wash your dishes after you eat breakfast?"

The blanketed lump on the couch stirs. "Welcome back," issues its voice from an opening in the folds. "Yes, it would."

Hanamaki is not in the mood. "Then be killed," he says, yanking open the refrigerator door for a bottle of unsweetened tea. "And I wouldn't have to come back to this crusty pile in the sink."

By the time Kunimi untangles himself enough to sit up, Hanamaki's down the three-step hallway and pulling his door shut, blocking out the lofty, unfairly annoyed _what happened to you today_ before it can reach him in full.

 

  
The next morning, neither of them needs to leave early, and Hanamaki makes two cups of coffee. Kunimi never does, calling the process a sap of energy, but Hanamaki has seen the takeaway cups discarded in the bin beneath the sink - never emptied until the end of the week - and has watched his contented neutral expression slip into being when he's handed a cup at home.

He feels a slight twinge at yesterday's short tone, but not at the truth of what he'd been talking about. So one cup is for himself, made just as he's used to, and the other is for his petulant, particular, peculiarity of a roommate, made just as _he's_ used to, minus half a spoonful of sugar. Like he said, only a slight twinge.

Kunimi shuffles into the main room with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, pausing in his steps (if they could even be called steps, what with the way he can't be bothered to lift either of his feet from the floor) when he notices Hanamaki stirring a second cup of coffee. How he notices anything as keenly as he does through eyes that always seem to be waving off sleep is a mystery.

"'Morning," Hanamaki points out, and points across the table. "Yours." He turns back to his own.

"Good morning," Kunimi says, reining his blanket in as he sits on a cushion. His expression flickers when he tastes his first sip, but he doesn't say anything more, only a quiet "Thank you for this" that floats over to where Hanamaki is leaning against the couch, nearly missing his ears and dropping into the cracks between the seats.

They sit in silence for the rest of their respective cups, steam and sleepiness making them blink in uneven intervals.

Hanamaki feels the disagreement begin to pass away, as it eventually does, tempered by the offering of one made drink or another, one picked-up pastry or another, one occasional apology, another shrug of acceptance. Their space is theirs because they don't let things fester, after all, and whatever builds up they find their own space to air out.

It surprises him, then, when Kunimi finishes his coffee, that instead of gradually slouching over until his head rests on the floor cushion and he's once more snug in the blanket from his bed, mumbling vaguely about _we should get a kotatsu, Hanamaki-san_ , he sits a little straighter, hands emerging from his sleeves to wrap around his empty cup, and glances over at Hanamaki like there's a conversation waiting on his tongue.

"Why does it bother you so much?" he says, which is how Hanamaki knows he wants to hear the answer. "It's not like I don't wash them at all."

Hanamaki had finished his coffee a while ago, had stayed in the room for a combination of calm, almost companionable quiet, and the fact that his residual tiredness was affecting him more than his residual frustration. He tamps down on the spark of the latter that flares up like a foot beneath a hammered knee, aware that his reflex doesn't need to be the reaction he gives. "I just don't get why you want to leave them in the sink all day," he says, tone even. He watches as a ring of coffee dries below the rim of his cup.

"Is it a matter of wanting to," Kunimi says, smart in his own head, as usual. "I just think it's fine to wait until after dinner, so I can wash them all at once."

"Sometimes, _I_ end up washing them," Hanamaki reminds him. He can't explain why it does bother him. It isn't the outcome where he has a little more to take care of, even if Kunimi didn't already use a minimal amount of dishes in the morning. He simply prefers not to see an unfinished task that could be completed in a flash being left to overlap with another one. But it isn't a reflex he can explain, nor is it an answer that Kunimi has ever seemed willing to understand. In any case, this isn't a kind of task that is either of theirs alone. 

Across the table, Kunimi only stares; or, because the word implies some sort of active purpose, he doesn't bother averting his eyes. Eventually, he shrugs. "Okay," he says, accepting it.

Hanamaki does stare. "Okay?" he repeats.

"It's fine, too," Kunimi says, spinning his cup around slowly with a finger through the handle. Then, he removes the blanket from himself, and, leaving it in a heap beside the cushion, actually gets to his feet, reaching out for both of their cups before heading into the kitchen.

 _This is unprecedented_ , Hanamaki thinks. He can feel his facial muscles doing something strange to the shape of his skin. It takes him several beats to move after Kunimi, and he follows the sound of running water to the sight of two coffee rings being washed away. For lack of anything to replace it, he looks over Kunimi's shoulder and says, "We haven't even eaten breakfast yet, what are you doing?"

Kunimi turns to him with dead eyes. "I'll wash them properly after we eat, then," he says, shutting off the water. What remains in the cups is clear. "Are you cooking?"

"Yeah, sure," Hanamaki says. "No problem. You didn't answer my question."

Evidently deciding the dish towel hangs too far away, Kunimi flicks his fingers outward, aiming at Hanamaki's face. The droplets hit, of course. "What does it look like I was doing, Hanamaki-san?"

There's a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Hanamaki knows there is.

But before he can do anything about it, it vanishes, and Kunimi lets out a sigh, soft as the blanket he'd left on the floor. "Like I said, it's fine, too." He looks the same as he always does, but Hanamaki recognizes hesitation when he hears it, a beat where Kunimi blinks through the resting furrow on his face. "I'm not just indulging you," he says, like that was something that needed clarification. "I don't want to make you upset."

A spark beneath a hammer once more, because Hanamaki is nothing if not easygoing. " _Make me upset_." He grins, to avoid proving Kunimi right. "You make me sound like I'm being irrational."

Kunimi shrugs again. "We both are," he says. "That's how it works, isn't it? I'll wash my dishes when I'm finished with them, and you'll wipe the tile grout dry when you're done with your shower."

"I still don't understand why you want—" Hanamaki hears himself, and stops.

 _Exactly_ , says a pair of raised eyebrows, and Kunimi almost smiles before turning back for the warmth of his endless bed. "You already do that for me," he says as he settles onto the couch instead. "So I think I can do this for you."

Hanamaki grins, a genuine one this time. "Kunimi," he says, "Are you just trying to get even with me?"

There's a drawn-out huff from the reformed lump on the couch. "I'm not even bothering to answer that," Kunimi says, and Hanamaki knows full well that he intended to.

"Well, good talk today," he says, pulling out a pan and the chopping board. There's something of a sunrise in his chest as he starts moving around the kitchen, making their favorite breakfast to share.

 


	19. cloud // kiyoko, collecting rain // karasuno third years, 711 words

 

People think the sun is her enemy.

People are often wrong about her, though, and just as often, Kiyoko cannot find the desire within herself to correct them. She refuses the overeager offerings of Pocari Sweat and parasols; opts instead to catch a stream of wind and make for the mountains, where if she lands on the right sides, there is fog aplenty to compensate for the clear, open sky, and more than enough space for her to raise her arms and get to work.

 

  
On days that are as still as they are sunny, she allows herself a reprieve. Catching rain before it strikes the ground is a job of patience, and precision, and through it all, she finds - persistence.

"An off day today, Shimizu?"

Sugawara's voice reaches her like a breeze, but the meadow flourishes beneath his feet, grass growing into a fabric full enough to survive a winter, reeds stretching upward like so many extensions of the earth. Kiyoko has the thought once more: that they both know a thing or two about persistence.

"Not quite off," she says, nodding toward her careful reserve, hanging ever-present at her side. She flicks her fingers slightly, a shower from yesterday saved as needed for today. At her feet, a bunch of chrysanthemums perks itself up, drying leaves unfurling into healthy green, and Sugawara grins, amused as always at her refusal to let the smallest things slip away.

"Of course," he says. The gentle, hardy fruits of his encouragement beckon all around them like spring. "Shall we?"

 

  
Azumane rises like light over the horizon; they get along fine. Sometimes, Kiyoko meets him at the edge of a thunderstorm, borrows his strength to see further than she could on her own; in turn, she keeps half a glance on the state of his shell, knowing just how far to nudge when the crashes above them start him trembling despite himself.

"Almost finished," she says, turning shut the lid of her seventy-eighth jar.

Their shadows threaten to vanish under the thick darkness of the sky, but even as he flinches from lightning, forgetting, in his concentration on staying steady, that they are made of the same inimitability, he grits his teeth and keeps the space around them clear, sending every other shadow leaning away from his hands.

"Thank you," he says later, as they're about to part ways.

Kiyoko only looks at him.

"You know," he says, fingers stuttering where he's readjusting the ties and ribbons that hold back his hair, "for keeping me company. And letting me help you - I'm glad I could."

She shakes her head, holds out a jar. "For the road," she says, and carries the rest onto hers.

 

  
There are times that her phone buzzes in her pocket, an incoming message only recounting a range of streets. Today, she arrives at an intersection along Aoba Dori, and Sawamura waves at her from beneath an umbrella.

"I'm afraid this post is starting to sink on one side," he says, holding it up with his other hand.

It's the foundation of what seems about to become a bus shelter. Kiyoko protects the area from rain; Sawamura sets the concrete at just the right consistency - the way of their efforts will be lost to many of the people who find themselves waiting here.

But she deflects every splash from the rushing wheels of passing cars, permitting them to land back onto the pavement once they've flown out of range, and she fills her jars of recycled glass to bring to areas under periodic drought, jaw set at the knowledge of her job done well. Sawamura steps back when the foundation is set, surveying his own learned competence.

"I heard tell," he says, a smile around his eyes, "There's a sun shower over Nishikicho Park."

"It's a weekday," she says, already preparing to go.

He nods. "The fields should be open. I'll see you another time, then?"

"When the time comes," Kiyoko agrees, and follows the trail of rain northward, raising her hand once before she disappears from sight.

 

  
People think she only comes out for the storms - torrential and fulfilling, even as they cloak the world in their midday twilight.

Kiyoko knows some people who think differently. They aren't often wrong.

 


	20. deep // kawatabi, questionable analogies // with takeru, 867 words

 

"Augh!" Kawatabi yells. He tosses his pencil into the crease of his notebook, throwing himself backward until he's flat on the clubroom floor. As expected, Takeru doesn't even twitch. On a slight crane of his neck, Kawatabi gets a better look at the answers he's filling in, and— "Hey! You finished the reading already? _How?"_  

Takeru draws a quick box around his final value of x before he looks over, unsurprised to see Kawatabi rolled onto his back. "What d'you mean, how," he says, laughing easily. "There weren't too many questions, and I answered them all."

Kawatabi does not get it. "I don't get it," he says, "How'd you find the answers so fast! Not to mention, how do you _read_ so fast in the first place."

"Well, I mean," Takeru rubs a hand over the back of his head. (This, Kawatabi gets. The close cut of his hair makes it kind of fun to touch.) "You've been to my house before. How do you think I'd get anything done if I didn't learn to do it efficiently?"

"Yeah, but still!" Kawatabi's aware of the evening ticking away, even though he can't see the clock above the door from this angle, but he hasn't yet been hit with the sense of urgency that is the only thing usually making him focus on his work. That feeling doesn't tend to come along until about half an hour short of midnight, anyway. He heaves a sigh and flips onto his stomach, dragging his knees in toward his shoulders and pushing himself back upright. Maybe he'll understand the theme of the passage if he reads it again.

Takeru has finished his calculus sheet and his history reading and his calligraphy submission by the time Kawatabi's managed to fill in two more pages of his notebook. He's not even sure his grammar is making sense anymore, on account of how he's been dashing down the first quotes to feel relevant into his last five answers. He's slid onto the floor again.

"Not to rush you or anything," Takeru says, and, oh. He's all finished. "I've gotta get home soon, though. And so should you - aren't you hungry?"

Kawatabi plants his face into his books in answer. "Heck, yes, I'm starving," he says, "Just like what's-his-face, Oda-kun and his empty bowl."

Takeru pulls himself across the floor to look over his shoulder. "Hmm," is all he says for a minute or two, then, "You're not wrong with these, you know."

This sends Kawatabi flying upward. "What, really?"

"The quotes you picked out seem fine," he says, knocking an elbow into Kawatabi's. "Just, the way you introduce them is a little..."

Kawatabi grins, stretching his neck back until he's grimacing at the ceiling. There's a tip of a volleyball pump stuck in it. He wonders how long it's been there. "I know," he says, drawing out the vowel. "Making things graceful is not my strong point. Well, not with words, that's for sure."

"Not _only_ with words," Takeru says, and turns into the light punch Kawatabi aims at him, laughing like he isn't tired from the day at all. "You don't have to think too hard about it - you look close enough to get the answer, then write them in with one of the set transitions we've been taught."

Kawatabi makes a face. "Isn't that kind of boring, though?"

A cuff over his head. "Aren't you already bored?" Takeru says. "Come on, you've got this."

"I _guess_ ," Kawatabi says. "All right, I'm ready. Let's pack it up!"

Takeru shrugs his arms open, gesturing toward his own books, zipped into his bag while Kawatabi was tugging his hair out over metaphors. "I already have."

Their laughter fills the clubroom like water over instant ramen, and Kawatabi knows the way he feels kind of warm and soft inside is no joke. "Hey, Takeru," he says as they're heading down the metal stairs, lights slapped off and door locked behind them. "Want me to keep the keys for tomorrow morning?"

He can just make out the skeptical face Takeru's showing him. "Are you kidding, Tabi?" he snorts. "Even now, you're never one of the first ones here."

Kawatabi only hikes up the strap of his bag. "I set a great example, okay. Anyway, yeah, I know. Just wanted to help a little."

"Sure," Takeru says, arm settling around Kawatabi's shoulders. "Thanks for staying late today."

Kawatabi gets a hand on his head (there's that fun texture) and scrubs in the heel of his palm. "Anytime, all right? Though I'd thought you would want to stay alone, you know, grab a bit of quiet time to yourself."

"Why, 'cause of what it's like when I get home?"

Takeru looks over at him; Kawatabi wonders if it'd be weird to compare the sight of his face to ramen, too. Surely no weirder than the guy whose bowl would refuse to hold food because he never expressed his gratitude properly.

"This is different from that," Takeru says, and even though Kawatabi knows he wasn't _actually_ reading his mind just then, he agrees.

Different it is, he thinks, grin as full as his stomach will be, once he gets home.

 


	21. furious // nishinoya, left in silence // 171 words

 

He's never liked the equipment room. Only the light from the gym through the doors, only the sight of everything stacked up, put away, time to go. Asahi turns around, half his face in shadow, and he hates it more than ever.

Shouting is fine. Raised voices are fine. They bounce off the crowded walls like grains of rice in a metal can, but he's always had an appetite - but he's never quite managed to have patience, so they are fine, but then they are not. Asahi walks out with hands as empty as his after apologizing for the wrong, wrong thing.

Blame him? _Blame him?_ The words boil in the crooks of his elbows, behind his eyeballs, all the way down his spine until they cease to burn, and leave him shivering. "Noya-san," Ryuu says, like they're inside a shrine. He pulls the inside of his lower lip between his teeth, wants to clamp down as hard as his breaths are shooting from his nose, can't.

It's too damn quiet.

 


	22. trail // sarukui, watching stars // with komi, 804 words

"Remind me why I said I wanted to come," Komi says. The end of his sentence is lost in the void of his yawning mouth, but Sarukui gets the gist of it.

"If I'm remembering right, it was because _oh, that sounds so cool, I wanna see it for myself!,_ wasn't it."

Komi sighs like he's trying to imitate the wind, shakes his head as he announces, "Past me was wide-eyed and naive about how it would feel to go climbing in the middle of the night."

"Climbing?" Sarukui looks forward, then back the way they've come. "We've done sprints on steeper hills than this," he says, laughing.

" _Middle of the night_ ," Komi says. "And anyway, now that I think about it, how's it going to be any different from the ones we usually see? The earth doesn't rotate _that_ fast."

Sarukui only shrugs. He'd like to believe the smile he looks over at Komi with has a bit of anticipatory mystery to it, like, _just wait, you'll see_ , but he knows it's probably the same as always. Tonight, he doesn't mind so much, though. He's expressing just what he wants to.

 

  
(They've long since taught themselves to blink.

In the sport they play, it's too distracting otherwise, the ball's path showing like a comet's tail every time it moves, only the unneeded information of where it's been, no help at all to the vital information of where it's going.

They shut their eyes for milliseconds, dropped shades over sunbeams until they can no longer see the dust in their light, and only the solid mass of the rally remains.)

 

  
"All right, we're here."

Komi immediately flops onto the ground, but he's breathing fine, so Sarukui steps close enough to get the toe of a shoe beneath his arm, and prods.

"At least take your backpack off, first," he says, then takes his own advice. The breeze carries remnants of the afternoon's brief rain, but the grass is no longer damp against his skin, and hours too early to be spotted with dew. They aren't far from the streetlights and headlights that would drown out the sky; just _aside_ enough, high enough to turn their attention upward.

"A lone moon graces this part of the night," Komi says, affecting the voice that is somehow nowhere to be found when he's called on to read aloud in class. "Is it north? Is it the eastern part? Its light is only a reflection; surrounded in all directions by those that produce their own, it is truly alone."

Sarukui hums, settling on a spare sheet and pulling his backpack under his head. "I can't tell what you're getting at, but I'm glad you're here watching, too. Even though I didn't think we'd be _looking at the moon_ together."

There's a _thump_ onto his hands where they're folded over his stomach, then Komi swings his bag back to himself by a strap. "Ah, shut up," he says, "I like you when you share your lunch, not when you conspire to make me stay out late."

Sarukui hears a grin that he can't see, but he lets it slide. "Just keep your eyes open for like fifteen minutes, all right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Komi isn't a fidgeter by any means, if by means he compares to someone they both know who absolutely _is_ , but the stillness at Sarukui's side is unusual enough that he starts to wonder if Komi's fallen asleep after all. He doesn't turn away from the sky to check, though, figuring they'll just find another night to try again if he has.

It's been a number of times for himself that Sarukui hadn't kept track of. Too much else to reach his memory. There's the great floating spill of night overhead, the cool, shivery scent of an unobstructed wind that breaks through his hair - the feeling of roles being reversed, that instead of him watching the gradual movement of the stars, they are each of them simultaneously staring down at him, his motionless lump of a lifeform with no breath of consequence.

Slowly, the earth turns. He doesn't blink.

"Wow," says Komi, hushed as he is still. Awake, then.

"Yep," Sarukui answers, and loses the rest of his sentence between the lines that appear all above them, tears of light catching on, sliding across colors that seem impossible when they can't even tell the leaves on the trees are green. His hand is a pale shadow, bigger here than any star whose dust forms an arc behind it, but no matter how far he stretches his arm, there is nothing there he can hold, and everything there too vast to touch.

The sky becomes a whirl like a glacier would a river, and he watches paths melt from the dark until his eyes shut on their own.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: shoot i have no idea what to do for this prompt  
> me:  
> me: okay, some magical realism absurdity with... [spins character wheel]
> 
>  
> 
> this could also have been:  
> \- ennoshita, running somewhere i would imagine as a cross-country course but would in fact probably not exist around karasuno  
> \- yamaguchi, snippets from 'i thought it'd be great if i could become someone like that' to 'you can go on ahead, i'm fine / see you later, then'  
> \- anyone else, actually, using a camera, to capture star trails,
> 
> but the engeki hq cast members continue to be too much for my heart, so these two it became...! looking more and more forward to seeing their performances via dvd in march ;A;


	23. juicy // kuroo, team anecdotes // with suga, and daichi, 1137 words

 

Kuroo forgets he has a mouthful of watermelon blocking the way when he tries to accompany his nod of greeting with a verbal one, and he pretends he isn't swiping away the small amount that manages to spill over, turns his head to cough.

Sugawara doesn't let him. "One thing a a time, how about," he laughs, and pats the piece of hill next to him. "Pull up some grass, Kuroo, and try not startling Yachi-san when you throw that out later."

Kuroo swallows the pedantic _there'll be no pulling of grass, that seems rude and unnecessary_ , taking a few seeds along with it. "My face is what it is," he says, dropping easily next to Sugawara. "'S not my scheming coming to light, you know."

"Don't know about that - you've just admitted to scheming elsewhere," Sugawara says. He clears the last few bites of his own watermelon slice, sets the rind on the ground beside him, and looks around briefly before he settles on wiping his fingers on his shorts.

Kuroo keeps a comment to himself. Outside of the game, they might well be becoming more and more used to each other, might be crossing the friendly ground between acquaintances and competition rivals, but he still doesn't have a close enough read on the Miyagi folk to know what razes that ground into flames. Additional missteps are avoidable, and the company is just as good to have.

"Come to think of it," Sugawara says, nudging against Kuroo's self-reflection, "Hinata said something like that before."

Kuroo blinks at him, fingers sticky from how he's coincidentally neglected to wipe them off himself. "What, about my face?" He grins, making it extra wide.

"Yeah, that you always look like you're up to something." Sugawara's grin is wide, too; _he's_ up to something, but somehow the way it shows on his face doesn't inspire the calling up of guards, or even much of an alarm bell.

Kuroo shrugs. "Well, you know. I try to be." He wonders where the tiny flatterer in question is, whether he's fallen into a cooler somewhere, and glances over to the last place he caught Kenma at work on the game he'd pulled from who-knows-where when their break had started.

"They sure get along well, don't they," Sugawara says, scheming gone from his own face for the present. "We were following you guys' progress through the Inter-High prelims probably faster than we could have through the news."

"Ha. Same with us." He watches them for another moment, Kenma decidedly not at work on his game, even if it is on and in his hands. Hinata looks pretty excited about whatever they're talking about, but then, Kuroo supposes, he generally does.

"Kageyama's probably the only person I think Hinata's met who he didn't make friends with right away," Sugawara muses. "Well, Tsukishima, too. Oil and water, those two. Even Yamaguchi, in the beginning..."

Kuroo laughs. "Do you always use your kouhai as conversation topics?" he asks, caught up in marvelling a little at the ease with which Sugawara shares all this with him, like there's no gate to check himself at before he says it.

"Sure," Sugawara says. "There's always the weather, too, but I have fewer stories there."

"Ah, yes, typhoon season will be nearly upon us— Like that?"

"Definitely an ice breaker, even if it is late." Sugawara glances around like he's in a story himself, and lowers his voice. "I'd rather talk about what happened in our gym when Hinata and Kageyama first met, though. Well, second met."

Kuroo finds himself interested, as if there'd been a cliffhanger somewhere that he'd overlooked. "Their arguing got so heated they set off the fire alarm, was it?" he says, comfortable enough to joke around more with Sugawara's lead. "And what do you mean, second, they knew each other before?"

Sugawara waves a hand. "A story for another time," he says. "Anyway, nah, but speaking of, Daichi _has_ done that."

"The fire alarm," Kuroo repeats, unable to picture it. A lot hidden in appearances, these Karasuno guys.

Sugawara nods, picturing it fine. "He had an _altercation_." He makes it sound like Sawamura'd done something illegal, which, given the vague fact of a fire alarm being set off, could be a legitimate possibility, if not, perhaps, a likely one. Incredible, really. Kuroo might be scandalized.

"I've been worried about the state of his head," Sugawara is saying. "He says he's been having nightmares. Concerning, as a matter of fact, the very time—"

"Suga," interrupts Sawamura, who Kuroo had seen approaching past Sugawara's ear, and had let reach them, uncommented on.

"Daichi! What a coincidence."

"I heard my name," Sawamura says, "I'd think it more a natural progression of events."

Kuroo leans his head back, looking at him through one eye - partly because of his hair, partly because of the sun screeching bright behind him. "Are you sure you want to be _thinking_ , Sawamura-kun?" he says, and something unfolds between his ribs at the answering sound of Sugawara's laughter.

Sawamura looks at him, then at Sugawara, whose amusement only increases in frequency. Then, he grins - this one tells Kuroo that he is up to something, and that they are all about to find out what it is. Sugawara's laughs trail into a single, challenging smile.

"Honestly, Suga," is all Sawamura ends up saying to them. "You just won't be stopped."

Sugawara raises his shoulders, his footing nothing but familiar. "Guess not," he says. "What can I say? There's so much to tell."

" _I'm_ here to tell you both that break's over," Sawamura says, but his grin is merely a friendly kind, now, even as he turns to Kuroo and adds, "That means you, too, captain."

"Of course," Kuroo says. He looks around for his watermelon rind, forgotten in the grass somewhere along the turns their conversation had taken, then around for the disposal bag, hoping a slight amount that he might be able to leave a better impression on their younger manager. A less startling one, in any case.

"I'll take that," says Sawamura, seeing more than Kuroo thought he'd been showing. Some impressions have only been strengthening, lately.

But Kuroo only lets the good humor spread like flame across his face, hands over the rind, and offers a hand to Sugawara when he beats him into standing up. Sugawara nearly pulls him back down, challenge returning.

There's a frankly unclean feeling over parts of his skin from the watermelon he'd consumed, and the sun is so intense that he's even more motivated to sweat his limbs off inside so they won't have to do so out here.

Kuroo takes his leave to round up his own team, leaving them with a nod, and a word or few in promise to meet them - and beat them - later on.

 


	24. blind // suga, broadening his vision // on hinata, 968 words

 

One look at Hinata in the middle of a run-up and Suga is immediately transported back to _Examples of Metaphor, Elementary Level_.

He knows better than anyone the importance of staying aware of everyone on the court - on that side, of course, but vital still, on this side - yet he needs to remind his eyes to move. It's dangerous, to keep his sight directly following Hinata. It's dangerous, to be so awed by the consistent miracles Kageyama pulls from their split seconds that he settles back on his heels to watch, and forgets his own vow to push himself, too.

It's dangerous to admit his prickling wish that Hinata could look at him as well.

 

  
Suga isn't Kageyama. That much is clear as soon as the two of them are seen in the same place. What takes a little longer is for Suga to realize, to really, truly experience, that the places where he doesn't measure up to Kageyama are not empty. They are blanks, sure, but day by day he finds steady ways to fill them in, until his doubts no longer echo against their walls.

"Nice kill, Hinata!" he calls, holding his hands out for a double high five.

Hinata runs the few steps over to reach him, glowing. "That was a nice toss, Sugawara-san! I think I'm really getting the timing down, too!"

"You are, you are," Suga says, and it isn't reassurance, for either of them.

His hands are warm from palm to fingertip; they feel only steadier as the days turn forward.

 

  
Suga doesn't yield, hasn't for weeks, for what seems simultaneously longer and shorter than it's been. He catches the quiet hurt in Hinata's wide eyes as he bows his head away, following the logic Kageyama had laid out moments before, and finds it somehow difficult to tell himself he isn't backing down.

For a play that's already a miracle, surely this can't be considered _playing it safe_. But Hinata has never allowed himself to be grounded by anything, has only ever thrown himself full-speed, full-heart into every attempt to be made, and Suga thinks there comes a time when those around him need to remind him - not to pull him down, but to make sure the floor beneath his feet is solid enough to kick off from.

He catches the hurt in Hinata's eyes, hears his stubbornness through it as he does the complete opposite of backing down.

He looks away, toward the gym that calls them.

 

  
"That was incredible, Hinata," Suga says. It's late August, a practice match before they head off to Tokyo once more. Hinata has just rotated out with Nishinoya, and the spikes and saves he'd managed to make - or, not managed; his recent plays are not quite synonymous with miracles - they replay themselves in Suga's mind even as he watches the team in the present, in the point they're pushing for now.

Hinata beams, wipes away the sweat that's slipping from his hairline. "Thanks!" he says, bright as a new idea. Suga recognizes what must be hunger in the way he turns back to the court, and the ball he can only follow with his eyes, for right now.

It's not really the moment for it. But it really is as good a moment as any other, so he nudges Hinata with the side of his hand, says, "I'm sorry for not believing you," and smiles at the confusion on Hinata's face.

"When are you talking about, Sugawara-san?" he asks, looking like he's genuinely trying to follow along.

"With your quick," Suga says. "When you first told Kageyama you were going to stop closing your eyes."

"Oh! That." Hinata shakes his head, hair fluffing up with the movement. "It's totally okay," he says, more earnest than even Suga knows what to do with. "You weren't wrong, I do have a lot of basic things to practice."

Part of Suga is relieved despite himself to know Hinata hadn't been lastingly hurt by how he'd wanted to turn his sight toward the ground. "You've really been using your practice time well," he says, and means it.

Hinata's grin could reverse the softening light of the evening outside. "I'll keep working for it!" he says. "Anyway, please don't worry about it, Sugawara-san, I wouldn't let something like that get me down."

With that, he focuses back on their match, and Suga is left to the waiting, gathering energy that Hinata possesses in endless waves, that he shares like so many shouts into the air, and generates from the lowest ground, out from the loneliest places.

"No," he says to himself, below the volume and pounding rhythm around them. "I guess you wouldn't."

 

  
There is room on the court for all six of them to be in motion at once. Suga runs up on the right, eyes ahead - through the net, just briefly, as a reminder - toward the ball as Nishinoya leaps across to meet it, the only thing that matters.

Tanaka scores; they score, and pride swells like an ocean beneath their feet. Suga feels the lightest he's ever been, faith in the bend of his knees, a rallying cry in his lungs. He knows what it feels like to be a decoy, to be a distraction. He knows what it means to be a substitute. None of this has been that at all.

Hinata cheers in the midst of them, the pitch of his voice soaring above them like always. Neither of them had ended up hitting the ball, this time. But Suga smiles like victory, premature, nonetheless a precious part of their current reality, and turns it toward Hinata, a wave of his own crashing through the space in his chest.

He knows what he must have looked like, even though, just then, he hadn't been watching.

 


	25. ship // ennoshita ・futakuchi, passing in the night // 887 words

 

Ennoshita disembarks at Itsutsubashi with a crick in his neck and a camera in his hand.

He takes one step through the exit of the station, then a few more, and a slight turn, so he doesn't block the others who are hurrying to and from their errands and engagements, and then immediately pulls his hat over his head, covering his ears with the folded-over part. The sun has set during the period between one station and the next, but even considering that, it is far too cold for fall, and still too soon for winter.

He sighs, notes the contrast of it against the dark coats of several strangers who walk briskly by, and steps into an opening along the moving crowd, letting himself be swept toward the next intersection like a leaf on the wind.

 

  
Futakuchi feels like a leaf in a gutter. He'd missed his stop because some idiot had apparently gotten caught in the doors a few cars down, and the delay had messed up his internal clock, or something, and waking up a second time had shown him the stuffed platforms of Sendai Station instead, however many blocks north.

Now, he's stuck walking back behind a briefcased figure with bricks for feet, and the person next to him keeps elbowing his bag as they type on their phone.

If he wanted to count his blessings, he might head the list with _at least it isn't hot out_ , but he doesn't want to, so he doesn't. There are still some things that are that simple, at least.

 

  
_Simply, the best_ , reads a comment on their latest article, and Ennoshita allows himself a few breaths to revel in the bubble of gratitude and happiness that escapes from the words, even though he knows his own contributions probably weren't really being included.

But without well-captured photographs, his colleagues' riveting text would slip to the wayside, so he makes his own space in the shadows, and steps forth while bearing the more presentable results of his efforts.

The plate of sashimi before him is arranged as beautifully as always. He snaps a quick photo of it on his phone - off-camera, if he could - before he picks up his chopsticks and holds them lightly beneath his thumbs. His more acceptable gratitude falls on no one's ears, blending into the soft yellow glow of the lamp above his head.

 

  
There's a warm-looking storefront that catches Futakuchi's eye when he finally makes it back to the streets around Itsutsubashi. A potted tree or three around the platform entryway, done up with white light strings like they're trying to get promoted to Jozenji-dori by the time next month rolls around. An empty table or two, or for two, just like Futakuchi usually commandeers for himself, set up right beside the window to the street, just where Futakuchi prefers to watch and observe and judge from.

The door's pushed open from the inside before he can get a hand on it, and it nearly knocks into his arm. The person who walks through is clearly preoccupied with getting their very plain hat over their very plain hair, and they only raise a hand in brief apology before they step around Futakuchi and continue on down the windy street.

 _A real sense of purpose, huh_ , Futakuchi thinks. He's too tired, not to mention hungry, to care about yet another stranger who carries the sense of constancy that he has still been unable to find.

 

  
Jozenji-dori is still a street canopied by darkness tonight, but Ennoshita walks his way over anyway, anticipating the sense that even as the people passing through it change every minute of every day, there's a singular pattern of life to it all that couldn't be replaced.

This time, he continues past the benches that welcome breaks and pauses, and glances only momentarily toward the solid, elegant statues that stay put in the middle of everything, never reaching even a millimeter further.

He isn't looking for anything in particular. But something flickers within him when movement in his periphery reveals someone racing across the street between head and taillights, even as his heart seems to beat as quiet, as modest as always.

He keeps walking through the shadows, trees unadorned and storefronts perhaps overadorned on either side of him. Tonight, there's nowhere else to be.

 

  
A day's worth of activity and a ridiculously prim-looking but admittedly filling dinner have not eased the buzz beneath Futakuchi's skin. He walks down one street, then another, and makes a slight turn to go down a different way.

He's looking for something to _do_.

Or, maybe, he's just looking for something to alight on. There's an urgency that beckons through the ease he swears he embodies, that tells him to step out from the comfort zone he's all but furnished, that shoves at his arm until he lifts it up, and flags down the chances for something else that blink at him once or twice before they pass.

He walks against the flow of pedestrians until he emerges into the place they all seem to be leaving, headed toward a familiar maze of neon characters and changeable, full-height advertisements. A hundred thousand windows are illuminated behind him. Tonight, he turns his back on the blazing, flickering signs, and follows his own footsteps home.

 


	26. squeak // daichi, on the source of a sound // with ikejiri, 840 words

The first time, they each think it is the other, and nothing further.

"Are you getting enough dinner to eat?" Ikejiri asks him one morning, a smile in his words, and at Daichi's bleary incomprehension, "I thought I heard one of the cabinet doors opening and closing a bunch of times last night."

"You mean this one?" Daichi shuffles over from the stove, tweaks the one in question. They keep forgetting to find some sort of oil for its hinges.

Ikejiri tilts his head, listening. "Actually, now that I'm hearing it again, I don't think it was that after all."

"That's a bit of a relief," Daichi says, and reaches across the counter for another egg to crack into the pan in front of him. "'Cause unless I was sleepwalking, that wasn't me."

 

  
Ikejiri has a habit of leaving off his shower until it's nearly time to go to sleep. Daichi doesn't know if it's something he's developed only recently, on the situation of living on his own - or as _on his own_ as he could be, with one other person in the same overlapping rooms - or if it's something he's always done, but he notices it like a growing patch of clover, like the dark skin beneath his eyes from the restless nights he's been making it through.

Then, he notices that their faucets haven't been making even a peep of rusty complaint of late, since they've gotten around to finding a bottle of all-purpose household oil and Daichi spent half an afternoon using it where needed.

Ikejiri moves around as quietly as possible when he knows Daichi's asleep, which turns out to be definitely a recent development, and the source of the noise remains unknown.

 

  
"Hear it now?" Daichi asks.

As soon as Ikejiri looks up from dinner preparations, it seems, the sound is gone again.

"Maybe it's someone else's water pipes?" Ikejiri says. It's as good a guess as any.

 

  
Some days go by without it. They don't miss its absence, but when it's late evening or even an early weekend morning, its presence is as prominent as a house plant neither of them remember getting.

Now that they're mostly certain it isn't the result of a piece of faulty hardware somewhere, it's not really a concern, either. But Daichi finds himself occasionally exchanging looks across the otherwise quiet room, and shrugs that have nowhere to land.

 

  
There's a mouse at some point. Its scratches are sometimes accompanied by a similar sound, though it's closer to the ground than where it usually comes from.

Ikejiri shudders, sitting up from where he's sweeping together a tiny pile of tiny droppings. "I really hope it isn't mice in the ceiling," he says, and scoops the incrimination into the bag Daichi holds out to him, keeping the plastic edges of it separate so Ikejiri can dispose of his gloves, too.

"Guess time will tell," Daichi says.

 

  
Eventually, it does.

They're in the elevator, or about to be, groceries split between their two sets of arms, when a familiar face dashes up before the doors close. "Oh, thank you!" she says to them, a pile of clean bedding in her own arms, in as much the charm and joy of a sunny day as always - as often as they've crossed paths along the mailbox wall, or waved to each other on respective comings and goings through the lobby.

Her frequent companion nods to them, too, and makes a motion as if to maneuver an elbow into the numbered buttons beside the doors, before she seems to realize that fellow company means fellow space-takers, and that she can't reach the panel without knocking Ikejiri over.

"I could get it," he says, shifting the weight of the bags to one side. "Which floor?"

"One above yours," says Sunshine-san, and Daichi turns to look at the already lit-up button the same time Ikejiri does.

"Oh, wait, I did know that," Ikejiri says, in the light, stammering way Daichi recognizes as an indication of a sudden, new thought. "We're nearly neighbors, huh."

Sunshine-san's companion shrugs, looking mildly concerned at his countenance. "Sure," she says, and at her side, a bright laugh.

"Our mailboxes are pretty close, you know," she says. "Same row, aren't they?"

Daichi nods. He runs back through the times they'd met in twos and threes, remembers hands on shoulders and at smalls of backs, and the one time they'd burst into the lobby with one dripping umbrella between them.

Maybe it meant nothing. But when he and Ikejiri leave the elevator at their floor, they can't help but glance backward over the tops of their grocery bags, just discreet enough and quick enough to notice Sunshine-san leaning up and sideways, and into a pause of lips at her temple. Her smile is soft, and the image of them lingers after the metal doors clunk shut once more.

Daichi looks at Ikejiri as they turn to the hallway that will lead them back.

"So," he says.

"Yeah," says Ikejiri.

"Maybe not mice."

"Yeah."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vienna teng's 1br/1ba came on shuffle while i was making dinner 
> 
> that's the story
> 
> another story: my desk chair is terribly, terribly squeaky and creaky and in the night if i'm still up i am so much more aware of it, and it reminds me of the racket the springs beneath my old bed used to make, and who knows if you can even hear something like that through the floor and ceiling of same-ending-number apartments, and goodness knows an intimate relationship doesn't necessitate loud bedsprings, but i am running on wisps of ideas around now so i will grab onto what i can ^^;;


	27. climb // tanaka, toward a nonexistent landing // 676 words

 

Some nights are quieter than others. 

When there's no one to be loud with, Tanaka doesn't feel the shouts and laughter buzzing through his throat like the most natural extensions of his breath; when there's no one to play off of, he winds down into a cheery tune of his own, a whistled verse that occurs to him only as his lips are pursed, a series of made-up lines. Sometimes, they rhyme. Mostly, though, he knows rhythm is a fickle thing, and while he might dedicate his body and soul to grasping something resembling consistency, he knows that it, too, moves around too much to be a thing that can be reached.

He flicks off the light in the center of his ceiling, then three steps and a sweep sideways to land in the middle of his mattress, covers already thrown to its foot. There isn't a song behind his teeth, tonight.

When he closes his eyes to the familiar shapes of the stuff in his room, it turns out to be one of the times when his plays of the day overflow from potential lesson into impractical loudness, and each of them screams at him in silence, reminding him that he has done too much to remember at all.

A miss.

A success.

Another miss.

Another almost-success, that becomes a success in a teammate's hands. All good.

A success that feels so incredible to reimagine that he wonders for a second if he's made it up entirely on his own, if he'd wanted for his execution to match his intention so badly that he refolded the result to make it seem like it had.

He shakes his head, pillow cool against the back of it.

He'd managed it. He really had. With his own head, and his own hands, and the always-present support of his own teammates, he'd really done something today that he thought he could only ever dream about carrying through, and it was one in a hundred tries, but he wants to let that one define him.

He knows better, though. However much it grates at his will to keep himself looking ahead, to keep himself from marinating in satisfaction, he knows better.

He knows _better_ because he watches it in action every day, and part of him wants to chase after it - part of that part believes he has what it takes to catch up, somehow, someday - and part of him wants only to expand the definition of himself so that he can continue having a face to look with, and continue lifting a face worth looking at.

He wonders, sometimes, if it would be better for him to aim for something concrete. These are the times new techniques are born from; these are the techniques he portions his time to raise. The trouble with concrete is that it is abundantly clear when it hasn't set properly, and there is only so much crumble he can tide over on his own before he feels the strain on his mentality, before he starts to think about how physical, measurable proof must be a greater indicator of success than any internal state of _I can't let this drag me down_.

But everyone always has higher still.

What he has to remember, in the borderline time between lying down and falling asleep that sets everything zipping around his mind like it wants to become its own energy - what he has to remember is that his stairs are his own. And his feet are his own, and every try he makes is his own, and the fact that he is not the best in anything is itself an unextraordinary fact.

If the better around him feel like the best, it is because he is setting his sights too near; their better likely isn't the best, either.

He managed to do something incredible today.

To his credit, he will reach for something one step further, once more, and once more, and as many tries as he can fit, once he lifts himself up into tomorrow's start.

 


	28. fall // koganegawa, after one // 629 words

 

It isn't the simplest thing, to learn how to think. Koganegawa feels like a baby rock when he stands at the center of the net, watching for the ball to be passed to him - like a pebble, when he tries to remember how Moniwa had done it.

Not only does the ball not go where he wants to send it, but it does the not going in a different way each time. Here too high, here too far, here too fast, and so, on top of learning to block with a _bam_ he doesn't know how to become the kind of solid second touch he remembers watching from the stands not too long ago.

Well, he does know how. It's practice, of course, even when he feels like he is still miles behind where he should be, and no amount of extra laps around the school can make up for them.

It's in the middle of practice that he gets his feet tangled up on the landing from a block and takes a tumble to the floor. "Kogane!" he hears all around him, like he's pressed the play button on a sound clip too many times in a row, making it start that many times at once, slightly staggered.

He staggers a bit, too, on the way back upright, taps his head against the bottom of the net. "Ow," he says on reflex, even though the tape doesn't hurt him at all.

Futakuchi's got the sort of pinched, pained look on his face that happens when he's having trouble with something. Sometimes, that something is Koganegawa. This time might be the case, too. "Kogane, you gotta be careful, all right?" he says, and is about to say another thing when Aone steps in front of him.

"Are you all right?" he asks. Brief, and concerned, and always clear enough for Koganegawa to know just what to do or say in return. He's especially grateful.

He nods as firmly as he can. "Yes!" he says, "No problem at all!" Futakuchi coughs a little from behind Aone, who nods firmly back.

"Even so, though," Coach says, "Let's get that ankle looked over for now. We don't want to risk any injury."

Koganegawa is touched by his concern as well. "Of course, Coach!" he says, and looks wistfully back at the court as he walks over to the side. He hopes he's feeling it right, that there's nothing wrong with anywhere.

"Moniwa! Since you're here," Coach calls, and nods Koganegawa over toward a bench with a brief pat to his shoulder.

Moniwa asks him to turn his ankle this way, then that way, and how he can feel whether it hurts or strains when it isn't his own ankle is like magic, but Koganegawa doesn't mind being practiced on. It's a good reminder of what he needs to be practicing, himself.

"Okay," Moniwa says, settling back on the bench next to him. "Everything seems in order, but I'm no more of an expert than anyone, so please pay extra attention to it for the next few days, all right?"

Koganegawa nods, a little bashful now about nearly injuring himself. "I will," he promises. "And I'll be more careful, too."

"Good." Moniwa smiles at him, and pats his shoulder like Coach did before. But his attention is mostly all on Koganegawa now, which makes him feel kind of special, even if it's because of a stumble like this. "You're doing fine," he says, answering something Koganegawa hadn't asked, but had been wondering, just a little, sometimes. More magic. Koganegawa has to wipe his eyes and part of his nose at it.

He sniffles out his thanks, feeling warm and floaty inside, and Moniwa stays sitting beside him, still a solid presence for now.

 


	29. union // iwaizumi, realizing an intersection // with oikawa, 459 words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the prompt was actually 'united',,,  
> i misremembered and didn't realize until i'd already started writing this,, thing,,,
> 
> .......i have no idea what i might have written for the original prompt ahaha

 

There was a time when they overlapped entirely. 

School days, activities, homes - and the time they spent and didn't spend at each of them. There were plastic boxes with easy-open lids piled up in Iwaizumi's room, not all of them his to begin with, and an extra net or two with a longer handle than he was used to. A deal at the local sports store left them with a soft volleyball each; a later one left them with respective real, tournament use ones. Oikawa called him his best friend to anyone who noticed how well they spent time together, and Iwaizumi didn't deny it.

It was a nonexistent choice to go to Kitagawa Daiichi following their graduation from elementary school. It was inevitable to make the same enemy. It was a series of movements that began who knows when that set their overlapping circles shifting like plates beneath the earth.

When they become one and four for the second time, it is as individual teammates who are treated as such.

During breaks and many bus rides, they still gravitate toward each other like laundry to the floor, like a cold drink to the ring on the table, but if they want to be anything here, they need to keep becoming something themselves.

"I'm going back to the gym," Oikawa tells him, as if neither of them are standing in the clubroom without making any movement to change from their practice clothes.

"Me, too," says Iwaizumi. "Didn't get enough serves in today."

"Gonna try the one I'm working on?" That smirk of his is simultaneously infuriating and, somewhere, a little thrilling.

Iwaizumi locks the door behind them, leaving a single light on. "I'll stick with getting mine to curve where I want 'em to," he says, and tosses the keys over his shoulder.

There's a satisfying sound where they meet Oikawa's raised palm, then they're off again to rejoin the rest of the team members who've decided to stay a while longer, and the couches who dedicate time to each of them, switching combinations up with steady unpredictability so they learn to counter in any situation.

Each time they meet for a practice spike, Iwaizumi finds himself tuning in more and more, as such a thing is possible still.

And each time he feels the fleeting fact he knows Oikawa does, too - that their areas of overlap are not a guarantee so much as a learned counter of time, and that while they can't predict what future shifts they will have to find their footing on, there are some things they don't need to predict to believe they are true.

The ball stays its course, hit by one hand, passed by two.

This, still, belongs to both of them.

 


	30. found // kunimi, respective trees // on kitaichi, 726 words

"Do you ever think about the time we lost?" Kindaichi says, out of the blue of the hoodie he's wrapped in. His eyes get wide; his hand comes up to flap around. None of his sleeves will ever be long enough. "I mean! Not that I am, or do, all right, I was just... thinking about it. A little."

Kunimi looks at him until he stops waving, and slouches the few degrees back to where he was before he started bringing up unnecessary things, again.

"Just asking," he says. "I know you don't see the point in looking backward. But..."

"Kindaichi," Kunimi says, "What are you talking about."

There's a gape of silence. Kunimi answers another math problem. He's not a fan of this circular logic, these proofs of formulas that exist for a reason, but he guesses they're easy enough to understand.

"Kageyama," Kindaichi says, "That's who I'm talking about." He rolls his pencil across his notebook between his thumb and forefinger, the page still blank except for the heading. "Sometimes I think about how all three of us lost out back then."

Kunimi answers another math problem.

"Not saying anything against where we are now," Kindaichi's quick to add, also unnecessarily. "We're in a good place. I think I'm in a good place. But since we watched Spring High, I don't know, I feel kind of like, _what happened?_ and why am I glad and still frustrated about it?"

Kunimi has no more math problems to answer.

"I guess it's just hard to understand why we didn't work out when we all seem to be doing fine now."

"You," Kunimi snorts, tugs the blanket on his shoulders higher against his neck. "You've been watching dramas with your parents again."

Kindaichi sits up, pencil missing the catch of his finger and tumbling between their homework piles. "They're interesting!" he says. "And moving, and— You're avoiding the subject again. Come on, you really don't feel anything?"

"The plots are kind of obvious," Kunimi says. "I ran into him the other day."

"You _what?_ "

"I was walking. He was running. The look on his face when he recognized me," Kunimi says. "He wouldn't have looked out of place in one of your shows."

Kindaichi stares at him like he'd just heard him giggle. He hadn't. It had been funny, though. "Are you talking about Kageyama?"

"You brought him up yourself." Kunimi leans back against Kindaichi's bed. "So, no, I didn't feel anything. He's still ridiculous. But he's someone else's ridiculous now."

"You're talking about him like he's a lost dog or something," Kindaichi says.

Kunimi shrugs. "Wasn't he? Always barking up the wrong trees."

Kindaichi scrunches up part of his face. "What, so he's with the right ones now?" Where that note of displeasure comes from, Kunimi has no idea. He guesses it's this - whether he's telling Kunimi for the tenth time about some injustice done to a character three shows ago, or when he would jump his hardest at one of Oikawa's _I know we can do better than this_ tosses, once Kindaichi gets himself invested in something, he just can't let it go.

"You said it yourself, too," Kunimi says. "I don't see the point in looking backward. But if you're going to, at least remember the part where we said next time, we'd kick them into yesterday."

"I haven't forgotten," Kindaichi grumbles, pulling uselessly at his sleeves.

Kunimi can feel the edge of the mattress between the knobs of his spine, but he doesn't feel like moving now that he's here. "We're going to beat him," he says. "We're going to beat _them_. Maybe we just needed time, or space apart, or whatever, but we're doing fine because we're not together anymore, not despite the fact that we used to be."

There's something lighter in Kindaichi's face when he laughs. Finally. "All right," he says. "All right."

"Then get your work done already," Kunimi says. "I'm going to lie down for a bit."

Kindaichi retrieves his pencil, but doesn't start using it. "You know, the bed's literally right behind you."

"Eh."

A snort like the kicking on of a space heater. "Suit yourself." By the sound of it, Kindaichi gets around to opening his math book. "We're with some right ones, too, huh," he says, and for once, Kunimi might be inclined to agree.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this whole thing without even considering to make it a pun on aoba but,, that seems to have happened,  
> i cannot lie i am a little delighted
> 
> i am buried in kitaichi feelings for the rest of my days ough


	31. mask // ???, slipping through the fourth wall // 723 words

 

They hand you a leaflet when you exit the theater. Smaller than a magazine cover, much smaller than the poster it is meant to emulate. You recognize the layout, the colors— the protagonist. You're glad to know he will be back for the next production as well.

You don't have a name, in the original work. You hardly have a face. You exist as a legend, a snapshot risen to fame, then disappeared like a flame atop a birthday candle. His story is almost six years old.

When you - and this is the most unbelievable, the most humbling thing - when you jumpstarted it, you were only a year older than he is now. You wore the number that identifies his jersey, and it was the only number you couldn't see when the identification mattered. You were only ever looking up.

You weren't to know that your time wouldn't last, but still, at times, you think you should have seen the ground coming for you.

It's a faraway world from the one you inhabit in your current timeline; these familiar, crowded streets are lit by signs and traffic signals for an unfamiliar future. Maybe an unfamiliar dimension. You're not sure where exactly that hole in the wall has led you. You might be dreaming.

There's an entire section of the front steps so closely packed you can't make out the sight of the pavement, but you imagine, for the poetic justice of it, that the ground all these people walk on is one of concrete. You had once carried the faith and strength of a team on your shoulderblades. Despite the connection, despite your role beyond that winter, _this_ feels like something far heavier, and far more luminous.

In your prouder moments, you wear the knowledge of an inspiration like a new number for a new game. But it is more impossible to feel proud when you are surrounded by people who don't recognize you, and here, among the outward sweep of strangers who were somehow all brought together by one world they share, there is not one person who would press their hand to your back.

Perhaps this once would have prickled at you until your purpose fractured. You know more what time feels like, though, and more what the stretch of _the_ world means. There is at least one game per person, no matter how they might overlap in earlier years; there is no obligation to recognize any other.

You watch the gentle, heartfelt chatter continue all around you. The choice to recognize each other is a wondrous one.

Is it strange, you wonder, to feel for and by those who are younger than you? Is it strange to be affected by those you were not? There was an idea introduced, that your precedent could be surpassed. Is that what your purpose was meant to be? There were many arcs that showed you how to craft for yourself what you meant to become. You wonder about the workings of those you have never met, in a way like you wonder now about the places these theater-goers have come from. But it's closer, and it's more personal, somehow, when those you wonder about are not persons themselves. Not here.

They called you unrivalled. They say records are made to be broken. There are cracks spidering out from the moment you watched that team fly, and you fill them with pride so the past can't get in.

Some things, you can take with you when the years blow themselves out and move on. If you're careful, and deliberate, and you were, you are - you don't see the cracks for what they are, but for what you can make of them.

Your fingers curve around the edge of the poster. A title angles across the bottom like an arrow to a new era.

There's a dimension where he, where they are far from reaching this stage. There's a dimension where you, and many others beside, are far from reaching any stage.

You think about the idea that with every sun arrives a beginning, that people exist without faces, without names, that inspiration is anything from a flash to an enduring choice to keep a flame alight. You turn away from a story with another one in your mind. You keep walking, eyes up, and ahead.

 


End file.
